Not only did County Assessor Harvey Levinson challenge his own property tax assessment this year, so did two members of Nassau’s Assessment Review Commission, the agency responsible for deciding tax grievances.
Commission Chairman John Peguillan said “typically” several of the seven commission members each year challenge the assessments set by Levinson’s separate department. This year, he said, Commissioners Jeff Gold of Bellmore and Lenora Long of Hempstead disclosed they had challenged their property values.
Gold said Levinson’s office valued his home $60,000 higher on average than any other house on his street — although some are larger with bigger lots. “ARC encourages everybody to grieve their taxes when they think they are overassessed,” Gold said. Long could not be reached.
Peguillan said commissioners do not consider their own challenges. Instead, a computer analysis is run, to determine the probability of their property being over-assessed. If the assessment is in line, the challenge is denied, but if the computer flags it, he said, “we would farm that out to an outside independent appraisal company.”
Celeste Hadrick