For decades, Nassau County has been plagued with refund liability resulting from successful property tax certiorari challenges made by residents and businesses.
Under the “County Guarantee,” Nassau fully refunds county, town and school taxes from these assessment challenges even though it only receives a small fraction of the original overpayment.
This inequity costs Nassau tens of millions of dollars annually, has led to bond rating decreases and is largely responsible for the continued existence of a financial control board.
Over the years, the refund amount paid out by Nassau County is in the $1 billion range, substantial amounts of which were paid with borrowed monies. Meanwhile, county residents have received no additional services in return for these payments.
Thanks to a dedicated revenue fund created by the Republican Majority, the county has a historic opportunity to pay off millions of dollars of outstanding tax refunds owed to residents and businesses.
In so doing, we can bring the county’s tax refund liability as close to current as possible. The Republican Majority’s special revenue fund is funded by sales tax revenues in 2021 that were much higher than the prior administration’s wildly erroneous forecast.
In fact, in 2021 the county took in $360 million more than had been forecast by the prior administration. These monies will be placed in a “lock box” account to be spent primarily to pay tax refunds owed by the county.
The Republican Majority’s reserve fund is a win-win for the county and residents; it will allow the county to finally pay refunds it owes to residents and businesses, and it will benefit taxpayers by eliminating millions of dollars in compounding interest accumulating against that debt.
This could not have come at a better time as residents and businesses continue to recover from the pandemic.
Reducing the county’s tax refund exposure puts the county in better position with rating agencies, which can lower our cost of borrowing. It also is a big step toward ending the oversight board’s control period.
This good government initiative will help resolve an issue that has plagued the county for decades, free up taxpayer monies to be spent on services our residents and help boost our economy at this crucial time.
Richard J. Nicolello
Presiding Officer
Nassau County Legislature