Blakeman backs tax freeze in speech

County executive also stresses need

BY ROBERT PELAEZ

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman backed his decision to freeze Nassau’s tax roll, discussed the necessary requirements for the Las Vegas Sands’ casino proposal and lauded other initiatives his administration conducted this year during Wednesday’s State of the County address.

Blakeman, a harsh critic of his predecessor Laura Curran’s decision to freeze the county’s tax rolls when running for election in 2021, defended his stance to do so again based on data from the ofce of Comptroller Elaine Phillips.

Phillips, in January, released a report of her yearlong audit of the 20202021 reassessment on the county’s approximately 386,000 residential and 37,000 commercial properties, saying the reassessment relied on “fawed data.”

“Because of the volatile housing market caused by nationwide infation, rising interest rates and the phase-in negotiated by my predecessor, which does not expire for another year, I felt it would be unreasonable to burden our taxpayers with a reassessment of the whole county again,” Blakeman said during his address.

Nassau began to freeze tax rolls