I come before you today to respectfully ask that you approve the $480,500 supplemental technical support contract that will enable the Department of Assessment to finally assume its responsibilities to value properties and produce an assessment roll without the assistance of outside contractors.
As you are aware, the former assessor was expected - and failed - to hire (last year) the computer support personnel needed to comprehend and perform the daily systems and database administration of the County reassessment contactor's unique and extremely complicated Integrated Assessment System (IAS) and take control of the court-ordered public access Website, "mynassauproperty.com." In addition, IT indicated that it does not have the staff needed to assist the Department of Assessment with this unique systems information transfer and maintain the Website.
The inability of the former assessor to hire and train in-house personnel to take control of IAS at the expiration of the reassessment contractor's contract on January 31, 2004, has brought the Department of Assessment and the County on the brink of a crisis that will paralyze Nassau County and the over 400 taxing jurisdictions that rely on the production of an accurate and up-to-date assessment roll.
The assessment roll produced by my office is used to determine tax rolls and tax bills. If your committee does not pass this modest technical support contract, daily systems maintenance routines and information transfers between the obsolete Wang, SUN Soloris, IBM, and Integrated Assessment System computers will cease. The resulting systems failures and inability of the Department of Assessment to perform its duties (as mandated under New York State Real Property Tax Law) - to process, update, and improve the assessment roll - will result in legal and financial ramifications that will reverberate for years.
Since the time that this committee voted down the former Assessor's approximately $1.2 million dollar supplemental technical support contract last month, I embarked on an aggressive nationwide search and succeeded in hiring several key staff members that the Department of Assessment needs to become technologically self-sufficient and drastically reduced the size of the contract to $480,500. However, the computer and assessment experts that I hired must be allowed to work with the reassessment contractor's technical experts for one (1) assessment sequence in order to learn the complex and unique proprietary models and formulas that are used to integrate the computer systems currently in operation. It is my understanding that the reassessment contractor used over 50,000 tables, models and formulas to establish values for the over 415,000 properties that are listed on the County's assessment roll.
The failure of Legislature to approve this crucial supplemental technical support contract will jeopardize the completion of the third phase of the court-ordered reassessment and will render Nassau County in violation of the settlement agreement.
I understand and share the frustration expressed by many taxpayers and legislators who have argued that the first reassessment roll has resulted in significant overvaluation and under-valuation of luxury properties. However, Nassau County has invested over $45 million dollars in the reassessment project and each of us, in County government, has an obligation to protect that investment and the financial accomplishments made by the County Executive and this Legislature.
I thank the members of this committee for allowing me to speak on this urgent matter and respectfully submit that your decision will have a profound impact on the successful completion of the reassessment project and the financial health of this county, our public school districts, towns, villages, and hundreds of special taxing districts. Be assured that I will be working to ensure that the methodologies used to set values on future rolls will improve and we will create an assessment system that is fair, equitable and, most important, defendable.
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