“Literally billions of federal dollars are directly tied to the response we give to the census,” said former Mississippi state senator Giles Ward. “It impacts our state for 10 years. In the 2010 census, we had a significant undercount in Mississippi, and we are doing our best to stop that from happening again.”
Ward is leading a statewide Complete Count Committee that aims to promote awareness of the census across Mississippi.
Locally, similar efforts are starting to happen.
Last week, a handful of figures from Mayor Jason Shelton’s administration convened to discuss census outreach.
Leesha Faulkner, curator of the Oren Dunn City Museum, is leading Tupelo’s awareness efforts. She’s working to coordinate with other figures in the community, including religious institutions, civic clubs and businesses.
City Hall expects Shelton will begin playing a role in outreach efforts by midweek, and in a series of forums he’ll hold in the coming weeks in each of Tupelo’s seven wards.
Invitations to complete the census should be mailed to virtually every U.S. household in mid-March. The census form can be completed and returned by mail, or the form can be completed and returned electronically over the internet, using either a computer or a smartphone.
Faulkner is optimistic about the possibility of partnering with the Lee County Library, with its publicly available computers and a steady influx of the general public.
Reminders will be sent by mail to households that do not respond to the census. Eventually, census staff called “enumerators” will physically visit homes that have not completed a census form.
There’s broad agreement that one key aspect of census outreach involves overcoming the resistance some will have to revealing personal information.
“Our biggest issue is that so many individuals have developed, understandably, a sense of suspicion or concern over responding to any questions from the government,” Ward said.
Both Ward and Faulkner emphasized that census information is kept confidential by law, even from other federal agencies.
Beyond the city of Tupelo, an array of county, school, business and media leaders in the area have begun to confer about outreach efforts.
Ward is expected to meet later this month with some locals involved in census awareness efforts.
Jon Milstead, a senior figure at the Community Development Foundation, helps coordinate the local Council of Governments, and he expects that body to play a role as well.
“What we’ve talked about doing so far through Council of Governments is using our network of local officials to really try to increase awareness of the need for people to participate in the census,” Milstead said.
The Census Bureau estimates that approximately $675 billion in federal funding is distributed to local communities annually, and census numbers help direct where that money goes.
According to Ward, every person in Mississippi not counted on the census costs the state an estimated $5,000 per year in federal dollars.
“It is staggering to realize how much money is lost by one single person not begin counted,” Ward said. “There has never been a more bipartisan issue than the importance of responding to the census.”
©2020 the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, Miss.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
