Hitting the mail

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 out this week.

This year's tax statements may look a little different, though.

County Treasurer Jean Wiebelhaus informed the Cedar County board of commissioners Nov. 28 of changes Multi-County Information and Programming Services – MIPS for short – 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 in a follow-up interview that her office requested to have the real estate tax statements sent alphabetically like always, but at the last minute, MIPS made an executive decision to print all of the 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.

“We have always had MIPS print our statements,” she said. “We do send them out ourselves. MIPS did stuff and mail out some counties’ tax statements this year.”

She said the real estate tax statements also are printed on 8½-by-14-inch paper this year, not like the 8½-by-11inch paper that had been 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,” she said. “We will not be doing that this year. It is up to the property owner to make copies for all involved.”

In past years, she said, her 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. “The postage will be more this year since we won’t be able to combine parcels for property owners together in one envelope. We mail out approximately 10,400 tax statements. They also had to be folded differently this year in order to fit in the envelopes.”

She said people who own property in the county will have to make sure they received all of their real estate tax statements.

“They also need to contact the assessor’s (office) if there needs to be an address correction,” Wiebelhaus said. “We request that they bring their statements to the office when paying taxes. They can also go online to www.nto.us (Nebraska Taxes Online) to pay by e-check or credit card. There is a minimal fee to pay online.”

She said her office plans to have all real estate tax statements mailed out by Dec. 8.

“Once the statements are mailed out, individuals can either pay by coming into the office, mail, drop box or online at www.nto.us,” Wiebelhaus said. “If the customer would like a receipt, they will have to mark the box on their tax stubs.”