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All of the 165,555 Milwaukee property tax bills mailed Friday have incorrect information on them, city officials said Monday.

The bills correctly show the current taxes due and how much of the tax bill comes from each local government and school district, Assessment Commissioner Mary Reavey and Deputy Treasurer Joe'Mar Hooper told reporters.

But in comparing current and prior taxes for local governments and schools, the tax bills compare the latest figures with figures from two years ago rather than one year ago and therefore show incorrect increases and decreases, Reavey and Hooper said at a news conference in front of Reavey's City Hall office.

That means the average taxpayer's bill says that total property taxes rose 3.5%, when they actually rose only 1.2%, Reavey said. She apologized to the taxpayers and to all the elected officials who, she said, had "worked very hard" to hold down taxes.

Reavey said the error resulted from "miscommunication" between the treasurer's office and the city's Information Technology Management Division. She said city officials are changing procedures to ensure such an error can't happen again.

Putting together tax bills involves assembling about 50 different pieces of information in a very short time, Reavey noted.

Hooper said the mistake was pointed out by a taxpayer on Monday morning. Some taxpayers received their bills on Saturday, while other bills would not arrive until Monday or Tuesday.

Taxpayers can see a correct version of their bills online at city.milwaukee.gov/treasurer and can print them out from there, Reavey said. Those who don't have Internet access can obtain a corrected copy of their bills, either in person at the treasurer's office in City Hall or by calling that office at (414) 286-2240 to ask for a copy to be mailed, she said. Hooper did not have an estimate of the cost of preparing and mailing corrected bills but said it would be less than the normal cost of a full mailing of all regular bills.

The mistake comes at a time of transition in the city's tax-collection operation.

Longtime City Treasurer Wayne Whittow and his top deputy, Jim Hanna, retired Nov. 30. The same day, the Common Council confirmed Jim Klajbor, then the office's No. 3 official, to replace Whittow until a new city treasurer is elected in April. On Friday, Klajbor named Hooper, a city lobbyist and former budget official, to replace Hanna.

Neither Klajbor nor Chief Information Officer Nancy Olson appeared at the news conference. Hooper, on his first day on the job, said Klajbor was busy setting up a booth in front of his office to print out corrected tax bills. Reavey - whose office is involved in preparing tax bills but apparently was not responsible for the error - said she had been asked to explain the situation because she understood what had happened.

The last major error on Milwaukee tax bills was five years ago. City officials inadvertently left a $9.1 million Milwaukee Public Schools tax increase off the bills mailed in December 2006.

That error was blamed on a communications snafu between the School Board, the city clerk's office and the city comptroller's office. The council dipped into the city's reserves to pay the school district the extra money that was supposed to be levied.