By Larry Jones
July 14, 2008

In framing the issue for mayors attending the 2010 Census workshop on June 23, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory said, "There are about 170 federal programs that use census data to distribute more than $300 billion a year to our cities and states. So getting the census count right is extremely important." The workshop was held to provide mayors an update on U.S. Census Bureau efforts to prepare for the 2010 census count, and information on how to challenge census estimates when evidence suggest there are more people residing in the city.

Several mayors spoke about their experiences challenging the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates, which are released every year following the decennial census count.

Since the year 2000, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told mayors that the U.S. Census Bureau estimates for his city showed a consistent decline in population. He said, however, "There was a lot of new construction, rehabilitation of older buildings, and other activities going on that indicated that our city was growing." With rising suspension of the city’s population estimates, city officials talked with Census Bureau officials and later decided to challenge the estimates. Slay said the Bureau was very helpful. He explained, "We had to give them a lot of data on vacant buildings, and on warehouse and commercial buildings converted to residential units." As a result, starting in 2003, Slay said, "We have added more than 5600 people to our population estimates. Instead of being in decline he said the challenges have demonstrated that the city’s population is actually on the increase. But more importantly, he said, the challenges "set the stage for an accurate count in 2010."

Mayor Sheila Dixon said the city has a population of about 668,000. During the last decade she said the city has challenged the Bureau’s estimates and won. To demonstrate the undercount of the city’s population, the planning department joined forces with various community organizations to identify housing units and individuals missed in the estimate. She pointed out that the city lost out on significant amounts of federal and state funds as a result of the undercount. In preparation for the 2010 census, Dixon said the city’s strategy will be to work through its planning department to hire individuals to outreach to various ethnic groups. "We need to do a lot of education, particularly in our Hispanic and in some of our more impoverished communities." She explained that the city is working with neighborhood associations to recruit individuals from within targeted communities and educate them on the benefits of the census count, particularly on how the data will be used to help the city secure funds for schools and infrastructure projects that will help call city residents.

Mallory told mayors that Cincinnati’s experience was very similar to St. Louis. He said, "We were seeing a lot of increased housing and a lot of activities that indicated that more people were coming to the city not fewer. In spite of this, our 2000 population estimate was 330,000 and by the time we got the 2005 update in 2006, they said we were down to 308,000. That didn’t seem right ,so we challenged the estimate and were successful. Our estimate was increased to 331,000, which was very exciting." Since then, Mallory said the city brought in Social Compact, which has extensive background working with cities in challenging census estimates, to conduct a study of the city’s population data. As a result, the city’s population now stands at 378,000. Mallory was so impressed by these results, that he gathered all of the leaders of the municipalities located within his county and encouraged them to challenge their census estimates. They did and were successful in getting another 22,000 people added to the county’s population.

As the U.S. Census Bureau prepares to send out census forms to every household in the nation on April 1 2010, Acting Deputy Census Director Tom Messenbourg told mayors that, "Getting a response in a timely fashion is very important." He pointed out that the Bureau is assuming that 47 million households will not return their census forms by late April. As a result, the Bureau is planning to send out more than 500,000 enumerators to knock on doors to collect the data. He urged mayors to do every thing they could to encourage households in their cities to send in their census forms.

For several years, Social Compact has been the leading organization assisting cities in challenging low population estimates. In summarizing his organization’s success, Chief Executive Officer John Talmadge told mayors, "We have found a million people more than the 2000 census estimates in 14 cities," which he explained translates into $33 billion more for these cities in federal aid. He said the organization is on track to find three and a half million more people by the time work is completed in thirty cities. He said, "What we need to do and what we need to help the Census Bureau and cities to do is find the Best Practices and processes that they can enact in their own cities in order to automate this process so that the Census Bureau always has access to the best numbers they can gather."