E-mails: Tax abatement end notifications did reach Edward Mangano’s staff
Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano received a warning Last July that in 2017 the popular tax cut which averaged one hundred and sixty-six dollars would no longer be applied.
Even though he was warned about it, Mangano failed to inform about 44 thousand senior citizens who did get the abatement concerning the end of the tax break program. They were completely taken by surprise when they got their general tax bills last month.
The county’s comptroller, including the lawmakers, says that they weren’t informed about the expiration of the abatement.
After many complaints were filed, the state and county lawmakers struggled to extend the abatement by introducing legislation that was enacted back in ’02 to offset a nineteen point three percent increase in county property tax. Homeowners who are at least sixty five years old and make less than eighty-six thousand dollars per annum would qualify for the tax break, which exclusively applied to county taxes.
In an E-mail copy obtained by Newsday, Roseann Dalleva, who is a Budget Director and Lisa LoCurto, who is the Chief Deputy County Attorney for Mangano, stated that they received notification about the abatement’s expiration on July twenty-first, 2016. The E-mail requested guidance for the preparation of the ’17 budget. The E-mail was confirmed by 2 other county sources and said that it came from the assessment department.
On January 19th, a Freedom of Information request was submitted by Newsday, asking for all the E-mails Dalleva and LoCurto exchanged between May and July regarding the abatement. The E-mails were not provided by the Mangano administration, but they did say last week that a reply will be provided to Newsday in approximately thirty days.
One of Mangano’s spokesmen, who are actually involved in a corruption case, said that the County Executive never received information about the expiration of the abatement. He continued to say that the E-mail date referenced is after the completion of the State Legislature’s session last year and it’s too late to impact the situation in 2016. The most important piece of news for the residents though is that the State is addressing the situation.
On Friday, the Democratic Nassau legislator, Laura Curran who is also running for county executive, said that taxpayers are extremely unhappy about county execs who cannot properly run the county. Seniors needed to be informed about this.
The spokeswoman for Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves, Cristina Brennan, said that the Republican staff and legislators weren’t informed about the expiration of the abatement as well.
Another runner-up for county executive, Comptroller George Maragos, said on Friday that this was all done in secret without notifying the seniors in any way. He continued to say that the whole thing is even more disturbing since the county exec was also not notified about it.
Assemb. Charles Lavine, who plans on running for county exec, said he is truly disappointed of the whole situation and said that the Mangano administration should have at least been forthcoming about this and inform its citizens about the change.
Mangano keeps mum about whether he’ll run again this year
On January the 23rd at the most recent Mangano administration meeting, Curran questioned it when lawmakers voted to request that the state puts an extension on the tax break. Even so, she received no answers.
Was the administration aware at any point during the budgeting process that the abatement will expire? Curran asked.
Former Legis. Fran Becker and Mangano liaison said that the county exec agrees with the abatement’s extension, yet no one was sent yet to talk about this.
This caused Curran to ask whether anyone in the administration knew about this during the budget process. Becker swiftly replied that no one knew about it.
Curran continued to say that since people will vote on this, it’s necessary that we have a good answer. Becker’s reply was to ask Curran to repeat the question.
