It Wasn’t About the Money, Says Finance Head

Department of Finance Commissioner David Frankel testified on Monday that the overassessment of Northeast Queens apartment buildings was not a ploy to increase income to the city.

“Firstly, we did not consider revenue implications when we developed this year’s assessment roll,” Frankel stated before the City Council at a hearing on the professed flub-up that caused some co-ops to be valuated up to 147 percent higher than they were last year.

“Our sole goal is to value properties as accurately as possible consistent with the law,” he added.

“I don’t know of anybody who believes that,” said Bay Terrace Community Alliance President Warren Schreiber, also of the The Presidents Co-op Council group. “This was about raising income for the city—this was a backdoor tax,” he added.

After months of inquiry from the group of co-op presidents and council members, the Department of Finance responded by blaming the skyrocketed valuations on a computer glitch.

The glitch, according to members of the Council’s Finance Committee, allowed for the incongruous comparison of many co-ops to much pricier real estate—including commercial properties.

Glen Oaks Village, a garden apartment complex, had at least one unit that was compared to a 20-story doorman building, according to Councilman Mark Weprin, D-Oakland Gardens.

The glitch affected Northeast Queens apartments far more than any other section of the city, Frankel said, because the area had been undervalued in past years. The causation between corrected undervaluations and the glitch was not clear from his testimony.

Frankel announced during the hearing that actual tax increases for Class 2 properties, assuming stable tax rates, would be limited to 10 percent.

“All he’s doing is playing with the numbers,” said Schreiber, adding, “When the assessments go into place, it’s spread out over five years.”

The increase, barring lower valuations in coming years, would amount to 50 percent over five years. The DOF had already offered a 50 percent cap as a compromise to The Presidents Co-op Council. The group derided the figure as arbitrary.

“We think [that figure] is close to accurate,” Frankel said.

Finance has not reviewed assessments of apartments that increased less than 50 percent for possible glitch-begotten overvaluations, admitted Frankel.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn asked Frankel to consider capping the increases to increments of 8 percent.

Frankel said he would consider any suggestion by the Council, but worried that imposing an 8 percent cap would be unfair to taxpayers elsewhere in the city.