If and when Governor George E. Pataki signs the recently negotiated New York State budget into law, he'll be ratifying an amendment to the much-ballyhoed STAR program, affording local seniors a reduction in the October school tax bills that will likely range between $1,300 and $1,600.

"Recently we sent a letter to all the STAR applicants who were approved for the reduction, approximately 52,000 of the more than 100,000 that applied, telling them what we anticipated their deduction for this year to be," said Charles O'Shea, Chairman of the Nassau County Board of Assessors.

"Since those letters went out, however, the state legislature has successfully negotiated a state budget, and included in that budget is an acceleration of the STAR school tax reduction.

"As you may remember," O'Shea continued. "The governor had originally proposed that STAR reductions be phased in over a four-year period. Then, during his State of the State address in January, he asked that the legislature move up that schedule, implementing the entire deduction this year."

Putting his financial backing where his mouth was, the governor also included $704 million in his proposed budget for fiscal 1998-99 to pay for the accelerated program.

"What that means, assuming the governor signs the budget into law and leaves this in place, is that, come school tax time in October, our seniors could see as much as a 45 percent reduction on their bills."

While it sounds today like STAR will be an incredible success, the way the law itself was written apparently inspired fits for many assessors across the state.

According to an article that appeared in the Empire State Report in March, entitled "Shooting Star," the original law had been passed in such haste that "few have been able to make sense of it, let alone put it into practice."

"Foremost among those scratching their heads," the article, which was written by reporter Gary Craig, said, "are [the] assessors charged with taking applications from eligible residents."

So bad did the situation apparently get that Richard Sinnott, the counsel to the State's Office of Real Property Services, which oversees the state's assessors, wrote them all a memo saying that while "laws should ordinarily be taken to mean what they say, this is one of those rare cases in which a literal construction may not be appropriate."

Fortunately, according to O'Shea, who was elected chairman of the county Board of Assessors last November, such confusion didn't manifest itself in Nassau.

"Actually, we did very well here," the chairman said. "But then , you have to consider that Nassau County is unique among other counties in the state in a lot of ways.

"To begin with, we, along with Tompkins County upstate, are the only two counties in New York that do county-wide assessments. Suffolk County, for instance, has 11 different assessment districts, each with its own assessor.

"Right there, that makes the process far more complicated than it was here, where we had one set of rules that were consistent for every resident."

As this newspaper went to press, more than 52,000 Nassau residents began receiving letters in their mailboxes, informing them that their applications for the tax reduction had been accepted.

"What I want everyone to understand about STAR is that this is not a tax cut," O'Shea said. "I've heard the phrase 'tax cut' bandied about, and it's just not accurate.

"STAR is a tax exemption, not a tax cut. Prior to STAR we had similar exemptions for veterans, seniors, and the disabled, and what this did was simply enhance the senior citizen exemption.

"But bear in mind that it only deals with the school tax portion of the property tax," the chairman added.

Though he's fairly confident in his ballpark estimates of a $1,300 to $1,600 reduction for most approved applicants ¬ the variable being the tax levy in individual school district ¬ O'Shea said he won't be able to supply exact numbers to interested seniors until after the governor signs the budget.

At that time the Office of Real Property Tax Services will fax the assessors office the final numbers, which he'll then communicate to STAR recipients.

"One thing we've done is implement a special telephone line, by which seniors can find out what their school tax reduction will be," O'Shea said. "The number is 571-1500, and all they need to do is call it and supply us with their section, block and lot number. Then they'll be told what their reduction will be."

According to the chairman of the board of assessors, the confusion that Richard Sinnott was attempting to address involved the criteria by which an applicant would be eligible to participate in the STAR program.

"It was one of those situations exacerbated by the fact that there were literally thousands upon thousands of applications to process, but essentially what all the confusion boiled down to were the eligibility requirements," O'Shea explained.

"The thresholds were based on age and income. In order to be approved for a tax exemption for this October, you had to be aged 65 by Jan. 2, 1998, your income had to be less than $60,000, and you had to file during the filing period, which this year wound up being Sept. 1, 1997 through March 2.

"The big question was, 'What was being included as income?' In my view ¬ and remember, I was on the state assembly's Ways and Means committee when STAR was written ¬ the first application wasn't fair in terms of what was considered income and what was not.

"Realizing that and knowing the history of STAR, Abe Seldin [the former chairman of the board of assessors] and myself worked to have our own application approved by Albany.

"With that new application came a worksheet which was very clear on what could and couldn't be considered income, and that really helped prevent al lot of the confusion that other municipalities experienced.

"Now, for the next go-round, we're going to try and clarify it further. Included in the budget awaiting the governor's signature is a change in the law that will make the federal gross income listed on a person's taxes the number we consider their income."

Even with a clarified version of STAR to work with, the chairman of the board of assessors said this year may prove as challenging as last.

The reason? This year basic STAR ¬ opening the exemption up to just about everyone ¬ will go into effect.

"Next year in Nassau County, if you are not eligible for Senior STAR, you will be eligible for Basic STAR, for which there will be no age or income threshold to meet," O'Shea said. "Basic STAR will be phased in over a three year period, with reductions in school taxes estimated to be about 9 percent a year.

"Now that's not quite as generous as Senior STAR, but then, the intent of the law was to be generous to our senior citizens," he continued.

O'Shea is anticipating that his office will receive close to 350,000 applications for Basic STAR beginning this fall, and is already worried that the board of assessors' facilities here in Nassau might be overburdened by the amount of paper it will have to store and process.

"That's why I'm trying to work out a way to do this all by computer," he said. "I mean, if everybody is eligible, then all I really need to know is where someone's primary residence is, and then I can work out their deduction.

"To my mind, a computerized approach would be smarter, easier, and it would cost less. Frankly, I think we'll be up to our hips in STAR applications if we attempt to do it any other way. Working this out with Albany, however, has been difficult. "

In regard to the cost of implementing STAR, O'Shea estimated that the county spent close to half a million dollars processing the 100,000 applications it received this year.

"Now, that expense was supposed to be reimbursed by the state. Unfortunately, though, and again, I was in the assembly when this was worked out, the county only was budgeted for a reimbursement of $194,000.

"Being in the legislature at the time, I know we didn't purposely lowball the county. We really thought that $194,000 would cover it.

"Fortunately for us, the county legislature passed, to their credit, legislation that allowed us to have a personal service contract. That allowed us to bring in part-timers to assist our dedicated full-time staffers and meet all the deadlines imposed as part of STAR."

O'Shea said that as a result of this year's experience, he personally travelled to Albany to lobby for increased reimbursement funds for next year.

"And I'm proud to say that as a result of that as well as the efforts of the men and women on our county legislature, this year's budget significantly increases our reimbursement figure to close to $1 million."

Reflecting on the first attempt to implement STAR, O'Shea conceded that most seniors still think the school tax exemption is "an empty promise" made by their state lawmakers.

"I can tell you though that come October, they'll be very pleased and surprised to see that we were as good as our word," he said.

"In fact I'm already hearing some some of those responses. I got a call the other day after a senior who had received a letter informing them that they had been approved for STAR.

"'Usually, when I see you're letterhead, it's bad news,' the man told me. 'This is the first letter from your department that I was ever glad to see,'" O'Shea said with a chuckle.