Several Onondaga County villages raise taxes, Skaneateles hikes 76%

Skaneateles homeowners are facing a 76% jump in village property taxes in the 2026-27 budget, a spike that adds thousands of dollars to some bills. At least 10 villages in Onondaga County have also crossed New York’s 2% tax cap, showing the pressure is spreading beyond one lakeside community.

The increase in Skaneateles has stood out for its scale. Residents have described it as an “eviction notice,” and one local voice said, “not everybody here has a lot of money,” a reminder that village levies land directly on household budgets, not abstract balance sheets. The village adopted an article allowing it to override the tax cap for the fiscal year running from June 1, 2026, through May 31, 2027.

The state’s property tax cap remained at 2% in 2025 and again in 2026, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller, so any village that needs more levy growth has to take a formal step beyond the limit. That is what makes the simultaneous overruns in Onondaga County important: this is not just Skaneateles, but a cluster of local governments deciding that the cap no longer fits their spending needs.

Onondaga County’s own tax structure helps explain why those decisions hit so hard. The county’s Real Property Tax Services office publishes county and town tax rates, and the county’s 2025 adopted budget was published Nov. 20, 2024, adding another layer to the local tax stack that homeowners already pay through county, town, school and village bills. In places like Skaneateles, a large village hike comes on top of that already crowded ledger.

Village property taxes also vary widely across Central New York. A 2025 statewide ranking of 525 villages used a metric that measures overall property-tax burden, showing how far apart local bills can be even within the same region. That comparison matters now because the size of Skaneateles’ increase makes it the extreme case in a year when at least 10 Onondaga County villages have already passed the state cap, and residents will be paying close attention to whether local leaders treat this as a one-year correction or the start of a longer fiscal squeeze.