Nassau Lawmaker Wants Assessment Department To Answer The Phone

NEW HYDE PARK, NY — A New Hyde Park lawmaker is fed up with the Department of Assessment not taking phone calls. Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello, whose district includes New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Mineola, Williston, Albertson, Roslyn Estates, Munsey Park and Plandome, said irked residents complained to him that calls to the department aren't getting through.

Lawmakers have proposed a bill that would require the department to have a dedicated phone line — and a live person answering — between 9 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. on days when the county is open. In a news release, lawmakers said the department's phone line automatically plays a message instructing people to visit the county's website and avoids connecting them with a live person. Patch called the line on Wednesday morning and was connected with a staffer after about a minute of waiting for the automated message to finish playing.

Furthermore, lawmakers said, a "frequently asked questions" page on the county's new tax impact portal instructs residents not to call the department, rather send an email with their questions to TPPQuestions@nassaucountyny.gov — an email address that wasn't functioning for two days after it went live.

Nicolello called the Assessment Department a key point of contact with residents, many of whom were "deeply troubled" by the reassessment plan. He called the county executive's outreach plan "inadequate" and said residents want answers about their assessed value, exemptions and impact of the phase-in, among other issues.

"It is unacceptable for a government office, especially one as important as Assessment, to refuse to take telephone calls from residents, whose high taxes pay for that same government office," said Nicolello. "We will not allow this to continue. The County Executive has been in office for 18 months and the Assessor has been there for over a year. There is no excuse for failing to hire people with clerical experience to answer the phones."

Under the new legislation, the department would have 15 days to post on its website steps to route calls to someone who can answer their questions and provide a documented response.

A message seeking comment from the Assessment Department on Wednesday morning wasn't immediately returned, but County Assessor David Moog told Newsday that hiring civil service workers to fill the jobs has been tough due to what he called a "tight labor market."About a half-dozen employees answer phones, he said, and that goes down when people take vacations or break for lunch, sending calls to an answering machine.