SALINA — To paraphrase the beginning of “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, picture “two households, both alike in market value, in fair Onondaga County, where we lay our scene.” As in Shakespeare’s tragedy, there has been strife among neighbors — caused not by a family feud, but by New York State’s patchwork of property assessment rates.

Take Clay and Salina, for example. A Post-Standard investigation found similarly priced homes in both towns had wildly different school and county tax bills despite both being in the Liverpool Central School District. Clay calculates taxes using an equalization rate, a ratio of a municipality’s total assessed value divided by its total market value.

Until recently, Salina’s assessments matched the market value. The Salina Town Board voted Dec. 12 to end full-value assessments.

New York State recommends that municipalities assess property at the market value but allows municipalities to set their own assessment rates. Until recently, only six of Onondaga County’s 19 towns followed the state’s recommendation, but in recent months three towns in the northern suburbs — Salina, Lysander and Van Buren — have opted to use equalization rates to calculate a property’s assessment. Now, only three towns in Onondaga County still assess properties at market value: DeWitt, Manlius and Tully.

As housing prices have skyrocketed, residents of towns who used full-value assessments suffered some serious sticker shock when receiving their 2022 assessments. Equalization rates softened the blow for many homeowners but the assessment hikes exposed the disparities in tax bills caused by New York State’s laissez-faire assessment practices.

“Equalization rates wouldn’t be necessary if all municipalities assessed property at 100% of market value,” reads the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance’s explainer on equalization rates.

According to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonprofit whose goals include promoting “efficient and equitable tax systems,” each state has a unique set of regulations for property assessment. Maryland and Montana handle assessments across their states rather than leaving it up to municipalities. States such as Rhode Island and Nebraska have different assessment classifications based on whether property is residential, commercial, agricultural or industrial. New York does not differentiate.

“We passed a resolution five months ago pretty much telling the state the way assessments are done in New York is crazy and the state needs to do something to fix it,” Salina Supervisor Nick Paro told the Star-Review. “When there’s taxing entities [like school districts] that cross town lines, that causes inequities.”

Until the state agrees to overhaul the system, it’s up to towns to walk the line between balancing their budgets and keeping homeowners from being overwhelmed by mounting property taxes.

Assessments for 2023 will be released in the spring, and Paro said he does not foresee a huge change for land in Salina next year.

“We’re a pretty much built-out town. We’re not going to see large residential tracts being built,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of redevelopment projects, but not new development.”

With Micron expected to draw 125,000 or more people to Onondaga County over the next 20 years, the region will need plenty of housing. As a “community between two cities” — Syracuse to the south and the 60,000-resident town of Clay to the north — Paro said Salina is an attractive prospect for first-time homebuyers.

“Salina has some of the most affordable housing in Central New York,” Paro said. “I hope people are going to be looking at Salina and be able to enjoy some of the amenities that are just around the corner. I think Salina’s positioned to have a bright future with Micron coming.”