Most taxpayers want the same things. They want their dollars to be spent wisely. They want to be treated fairly. They want tax bills to have predictability.

In the last 10 years, Allegheny County's property assessment system has left much of that to be desired. Because of the flare-ups over assessments, some taxpayers feel they and their properties were mishandled. Others feel that when properties are reassessed, there's no telling how high their next tax bill might be.

So it's no surprise that mere mention of reassessment makes many people cringe. We understand where County Executive Dan Onorato is coming from. He switched the county to the base-year method, freezing assessments to 2002 levels and giving taxpayers relative property-tax stability.

But some taxpayers said even that method was not fair because it locked in higher assessments on properties like theirs, which had declined in value. In effect, the base-year method forced them to pay higher taxes.

They filed suit and won their case in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. Then they won again before the state Supreme Court. As a remedy to years of assessments that had not been updated, the justices ordered a reassessment for the county. The Post-Gazette believed that order, to be truly fair, should have applied to all counties using the base-year method, but the court's ruling was not so expansive.

Now Mr. Onorato is charged with following the court's order. But instead of submitting a plan for reassessing fairly and offering protections to taxpayers fearful of a jump in their tax bill, he turned in no plan at all. As a result, Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. had to design one.

Rather than work with the court to ensure fairness and protection for taxpayers, the county executive, who is now a candidate for governor, has decided to appeal. While we agree with Mr. Onorato on the need for statewide assessment reform and a legislative solution to assessment shocks, his strategy of repeatedly going to court rather than grappling head on with this issue will only hurt the taxpayers he claims to be fighting for.

It will hurt because it puts off the day of reckoning for the county's frozen assessments. The longer that day is postponed, the higher will be some property owners' new assessments and tax bills.

That doesn't sound fair to us, it blows a hole through predictability and if a delayed reassessment ends up costing far more money, it won't be the best use of public dollars.

Allegheny County taxpayers deserve better than this.

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