Relates to allowing certain special assessing units other than cities to adjust their current base proportions

BILL NUMBER:S5002

Title of bill

An act to amend the real property tax law, in relation to allowing certain special assessing units other than cities to adjust their current base proportions

Purpose

To allow special assessing units other than cities in the county of Nassau to adjust their current base proportions.

Summary of provisions

Section 1. Amends section 1803-a of the Real Property Tax Law by adding a new paragraph w.

Section 2. Effective date.

Justification

Article 18 and 19 of the Real property Tax Law provide that in "special" and "approved" assessing units, class tax rates must be established in accordance with a strict statutory formula. One of the elements of-the formula is that the current base proportion of any class may not exceed the adjusted base proportion for that class from the prior year by-more than 5%. To avoid hardship to homeowners, the Legislature has overridden this 5 cap on an annual basis for a number of jurisdictions, including Nassau County (Article 18) and the approved assessing units in Nassau (Article 19), where a 1% cap has been repeatedly set in recent years by special legislation. until these annual bills are enacted, however, there is a budgetary uncertainty in these jurisdictions each year. Another concern is that circumstances vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and the cap may not work equally well for all of them. This bill gives special and approved assessing units in Nassau County the authority to tailor their "cap" to local conditions each year, thereby removing the annual uncertainty and freeing them to do what is best for the local property taxpayers in their neighborhood.

Legislative history

New Bill.

Fiscal implications

None to the State.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to the levy of taxes based on the 2011 assessment roll in a special assessing unit.