Earlier this month Lancaster County Commissioners announced that countywide reassessment scheduled for 2013 will be delayed until 2017. The move was prompted, commissioners said, because many homeowners would find new, higher assessments unfair -- and might appeal them.

But a growing number of county residents are doing just that even without reassessment.

A total of 749 property owners -- 548 residential and 201 commercial -- appealed their tax assessment for 2012, according to county records. It's the highest total in five years and a 14 percent increase over last year.

None of the appeals -- which were required to be filed by Aug. 1 -- have yet been decided, said John Mavrides, the county's director of property assessment. All appeals must be heard and decided and the property owner must be notified by Oct. 31.

Last year, 58 percent of property owners who appealed won a lower assessment from the county Board of Assessment Appeals.

Successful appeals mean lower property-tax bills for owners -- and lost revenue for taxing authorities like school districts and municipalities. Accordingly, many taxing authorities are now monitoring assessment appeals, intervening if they believe an assessment is accurate and shouldn't be lowered.

"More and more frequently, the 17 school districts [we] represent [both within and outside of Lancaster County] are asking us to evaluate tax assessment appeals," said Howard Kelin, a partner in the Lancaster law firm of Kegel, Kelin, Almy & Grimm.

Because school districts in particular rely on real estate taxes as their primary source of revenue -- and Pennsylvania's Act 1 limits real estate tax increases -- "it has therefore become more important for school districts to play an active role in evaluating tax assessment appeals filed by taxpayers, particularly by commercial and industrial property owners who are filing an increasing number of appeals," Kelin said.

Indeed, the number of commercial/industrial property owners filing an appeal has nearly quintupled, from 42 in tax year 2007, to 201 for tax year 2012.

Most appeals are for residential properties; these have increased as well, but at a slower pace.

Assessment appeals peaked here six years ago -- in response to the last countywide reassessment, conducted in 2004, with the new, higher assessments in place for tax year 2005.

The reassessment prompted a total of 9,084 appeals -- 8,193 by residential property owners, 891 by commercial/industrial property owners -- before the new assessments went into effect.

Appeals totaled 997 the next year, and continued to fall. For tax year 2008, just 268 total appeals were filed.

Then the financial crisis hit, the economy tanked and the number of appeals began to rise -- 671 total appeals for tax year 2009; 440 for 2010; 657 for 2011; to 749 for next year.

To justify the cost of an appeal -- which usually requires an appraisal -- the savings have to be substantial, said Christina Hausner, a local attorney who has helped guide clients through the process. But particularly for commercial or industrial owners who have seen business drop off, a successful appeal goes straight to the bottom line.

"A number of years ago a lot of golf courses were filing appeals, because golf was off" due to the economy, said Hausner, a partner with Russell, Krafft & Gruber. "Last year I did a storage facility."

But she's seeing a spike in interest from homeowners. "Sometimes people who just happen to have an appraisal say, 'There's something amiss here,' " she said.

County commissioners opted to delay the next countywide reassessment specifically because they believed many residents would have the same reaction.

"I think it would open us up to tens of thousands of assessment appeals because people don't always separate assessment value from market value," said commissioner Scott Martin, who worried the county would have to spend money to address the appeals.

Still, while property values have indeed fallen here --the median home value in Lancaster County was $169,300 in June, down from $193,000 in 2007, according to Zillow.com -- county officials say the vast majority of county properties are still valued higher than their assessment.

But figuring out the "fair" assessment can be fiendishly complex.

Each year a state agency called the State Tax Equalization Board issues a "common level ratio" for each county, essentially the average difference between assessments and sales prices for properties that sold in the county in the preceding year.

The CLR multiplied by current fair market value is supposed to yield a "fair" assessment. The CLR for Lancaster County for tax year 2012 is 76.5, meaning that owners of a home with a fair market value of $200,000 should be assessed at $153,000.

Or you can use the common level ratio factor, which is the mathematical reciprocal of the common level ratio; that figure for Lancaster County for tax year 2012 is 1.31, meaning that multiplying the assessed value of a property by 1.31 should yield a fair market value.

If the market value -- as "proven" by an appraisal or comparable sales -- is less than the assessed value, say experts, an appeal may be in order. But property can actually be worth more than it's assessed and still be considered "overassessed."

While many municipalities and school districts monitor assessment appeals involving only commercial or industrial properties -- which are usually the highest-value properties -- attorney Kelin noted that smaller school districts may also keep an eye on residential appeals, where they are among the most valuable properties in the district.

"If we've been asked to evaluate an appeal, we'll review the material submitted by taxpayers to the tax assessment board and evaluate whether we think the school district should obtain its own independent appraisal, or whether it makes sense for the school district to try and resolve the issue without incurring costs," he said.

Laura Cowburn, business manager for the Columbia Borough School District, said the district has long monitored assessment appeals and now collaborates with Columbia Borough "to look for instances where an appeal may not be valid or may have circumstances where information from the school district or the borough might be valuable for the hearing officer's consideration," she said in an email.

The school district's tax base has dropped from $357.8 million in 2009 to $355.3 million this year, Cowburn said. Over the past three years the district had seen a $267,866 decrease in tax revenue due to assessment changes -- $84,870 less in 2008, $89,787 less in 2009 and $93,209 less this year. But, Cowburn noted this figure includes more than just successful appeals, as properties damaged by fire or storm will also be assessed lower.

But while the amount of revenue lost each year has increased, so has the district's millage rate -- meaning that "overall the total assessment adjustments have not significantly increased -- just a little over 1 percent of our total assessed value."

Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. His column, Smart Remarks, appears weekly. You can contact him at gsmart@lnpnews.com.