Public Employee Press

Assessor shortage fuels budget crisis

An error-plagued assessment system and dwindling personnel are major factors in the city's perennial budget woes, union leaders told the City Council Finance Committee May 2.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts explained how the city needlessly loses hundreds of millions in revenue that it could collect without raising taxes.

She called on the City Council to review staffing at the Finance Dept., where the force of Assessors has plunged from 170 to 110 since Michael R. Bloomberg became mayor in 2002.

"The Department of Finance is critically understaffed, and the understaffing costs the city millions of dollars in tax revenue," said Roberts, who was accompanied by Associate Director Henry Garrido and Senior Analyst David Moog. Beefing up agency staff and capturing lost revenue would help the city eliminate its deficit, making layoffs unnecessary, she said.

The hearing focused on complaints from Queens co-op owners who charged that their properties were assessed improperly and hit with dramatic property tax increases. Because of downsizing, including the virtual elimination of Assistant Assessors, the department doesn't have enough personnel to update its database of properties for assessment, said Local 1757 President Fran Schloss.

$750 million loss

"New York City has one of the most understaffed assessment offices in the country, and the problems are only going to get worse," Roberts said. "There hasn't been any real hiring of Assessors in 18 years."

Discussing the union's white paper project, which Garrido coordinates, she said union research shows that the city has lost more than $750 million through inaccurate assessments.

If the Finance Dept. increased staffing and improved the assessment methodology, the city "would not have a deficit," Roberts said. "We would not be looking at cutting libraries, childcare and teachers. And in the end, everyone would pay their fair share without any tax increase," she said.

Finance Chair Domenic M. Recchia Jr. (D-Brooklyn) said he would sit down with representatives of DC 37 and Finance to discuss the union's concerns about staffing, lost revenues and the errors and inequities resulting from faulty property tax assessments.

— Gregory N. Heires