Two tax bills for more than $1.1 million that were wrongly sent to the Notre Dame Parish in New Hyde Park are one step closer to getting corrected through the Nassau County Legislature.
The Legislature’s Finance and Rules Committee recently advanced Correction of Error petitions to pay back the $1,165,324.68 sent to the parish, which is tax-exempt, according to a press release from the county’s minority caucus.
Last winter, the parish was sent two different tax bills for its 2023 general taxes. The initial Nassau Assessment Department error led to a $16.7 million assessment on the property.
The Diocese of Rockville Centre, which owns the property, received the bill. State law exempts houses of worship, which are nonprofits, from property taxes.
Town of North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Charles Berman, who was told of the error by the diocese, wrote at the time to acting County Assessor Matthew Croning that the county failed to apply a full property tax.
In November, Berman told Blank Slate Media the parish, located at 45 Mayfair Road, sold a single-family home on its property for $630,000, the amount the county should have removed the tax exemption for rather than using the value of the entire property.
County Legislator Debra Mulé (D–Freeport) said in a statement when the Legislature approves all corrections, the final bill will total more than $2.715 million.
“Once the corrections receive final approval from the full Legislature, the County will have paid out more than $2.715 million to fix specific, avoidable tax bill mistakes,” she said.
In October 2022, the Minority Caucus identified 842 property owners who had been overcharged by a total of approximately $1.55 million because the five-year phase-in of the 2020-2021 reassessment was not applied correctly to the impacted second-half school tax bills.
The church was incorrectly assessed $1.2M and the 842 property owners owed $1.55, which left Nassau County shelling out $2.75 million in taxes that were not due.
“It is deeply disappointing that a series of avoidable and preventable tax bill errors have already deprived Nassau County residents of nearly $3 million that could have been applied toward public services or tax relief,” Mulé said. “Despite the administration’s promises of no future mistakes, the Notre Dame Parish fiasco illustrates why we have no confidence that additional major and costly errors are (not) looming.”
She added, “County Executive Blakeman must immediately order an independent investigation into how these errors occurred, how the Department of Assessment missed them, and the steps that should be taken to prevent the needless waste of even more taxpayer money.”
Cronin, an Amityville resident, was appointed acting assessor by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in May of last year. Prior to his current role, Cronin was an assistant assessor with previous experience in the Department of Assessment.
He served as the county’s commercial and industrial assessor in 2020 before being promoted.
Cronin was appointed after Blakeman, a Republican did not renew the contract for acting Assessor Robin Laveman, who was appointed to fill the shoes of her predecessor, David Moog, by former County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat.
