Changes made to real estate tax statements

HARTINGTON – People who own property in Cedar County need to make sure they receive all of their real estate tax statements after they are mailed next week.

County Treasurer Jean Wiebelhaus informed the Cedar County Board of Commissioners Nov. 28 of changes Multi-County Information and Programming Services (MIPS) made in 2023 to the county’s real estate tax statements.

MIPS, the technology division of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, provides the state’s counties with custom software, hardware, product support, networking and consulting services.

Wiebelhaus said her office requested to have the real estate tax statements sent alphabetically like usual but at the last minute MIPS made an executive decision to print all statements by ZIP code.

“Their response was they were rushed for time getting statements printed and had to make a last-minute executive decision,” Wiebelhaus said. “This is the first year we received the real estate tax statements printed by ZIP code rather than alphabetically.”

Another change this year, Wiebelhaus said, real estate tax statements were printed on 8½-by-14-inch paper this year, not 8½-by-11-inch paper used previously.

“Our normal procedure would be to look at each property owner’s index card and send all parcels together in one envelope to the property owner,” Wiebelhaus said. “This saves on postage and is a double check on our end, so we don’t forget a parcel number on our index cards. If one or more owners would pay on a parcel, we would make a copy of the tax statement and send it to all parties paying on that parcel.”

The county treasurer’s office won’t be doing that this year. Instead, it is up to the property owner to make copies for all involved.

In past years, the office has mailed all real estate tax statements that are escrowed through an individual’s mortgage company to banks.

“This year, all tax statements will be mailed to the property owner,” Wiebelhaus said.

By not being able to combine parcels, postage will also be more expensive. Each had to be folded differently to fit into an envelope.

When mailing 10,400 tax statements, those small changes make a big difference, she said.

Real estate tax statements will be mailed by Dec. 8.

Any address change corrections will need to be made at the county assessor’s office.

Individuals can pay their taxes at the treasurer’s office, by mail, drop box or online at www.nto.us.

When paying taxes at the treasurer’s office, property owners should bring the statement with them. There is a fee to pay online.