VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – 2020 has the promise of being a busy year. The Tokyo Summer Olympics are on the schedule, it’s an important election year, and it ends a decade of years beginning with “201.” Something you might not have on your radar screen as an extremely important part of 2020 is the Census.
Why does the Census matter?
As you probably already know, a new census count is taken every 10 years in the United States. Not only does this “headcount” of sorts accurately map our neighborhoods, counties and states in terms of demographics, average household size, racial diversity, and more, it also effectively determines the federal funds provided to each state.
Highways, school lunch programs, education grants, Medicaid and Medicare and other resources are funded depending on how many individuals are counted.
If the state misses just one person during the census count, it loses out on $19,000 in federal funds over the next ten years, until the next census is taken.
Missing one household equates to $44,312 of federal funds lost.
If the state’s census is off by only 0.1% the total of federal funds missed out on equals $15 million.
In the 2010 Census, over one million people were not counted — perhaps they didn’t take the time, didn’t get the information, or weren’t even aware. At least 846 of those one million were in North Dakota.
That’s $16 million in federal funds that should have been provided to our state but were not.
Communities Mobilized
To create awareness of the importance of participating in the 2020 Census, Barnes County and counties all across the state of North Dakota, are taking the initiative of forming task forces.
Their duty is to help answer questions you might have about the census, focusing on helping the community understand that your participation matters in that every person counted means that much more in tax dollars returned, more funds to repair/construct highways, more money to pump into educational grants and programs like school lunches, medicare and more.
Federal, State and local entities are beginning to collaborate in an effort to reach people in communities and implement a census awareness campaign that motivates each person in every household to be counted in the 2020 Census. Barnes County and Valley City representatives gathered on Tuesday morning to discuss how best to move forward with these efforts in our own community.
The 2020 Census Campaign has key phases as the country prepares for the data-collection time in March 2020, and we find ourselves in the Education Phase, where such committees through states are being trained by Census Bureau liaisons to find ways to raise awareness in communities.
Barnes County’s 2020 Census Taskforce
At the Tuesday, October 29th meeting, members of the area Census taskforce met for training with Census Bureau Partnership Specialist Erin Musland. They represented many different entities in the community: Hilary Flatt, Valley City Parks and Recreation; Jayme Menard, Valley City State University Student; Krystle Hartsell, Valley City Public Works; Scott Magnuson, Valley City Fire Department; Avis Richter, City of Valley City; Tina Olson and Ellie Boese, Valley City Times-Record; Steve Hammel, Valley City-Barnes County Library; Mikayla Gustafson, Valley City Area Chamber of Commerce; Sue Carlsrud, retired from North Dakota High School Activities Association. Dave Carslrud, also a member of the task force, was not able to attend.
If you are interested in being a member of the task force, contact Avis Richter (701-845-8121) or Krystle Hartsell (701-845-8131).
Story submitted to NewsDakota.com