City asked to help fund census efforts

A local organizer for the 2010 federal census is asking for funding from the city to raise community awareness about the importance of being counted.

Luci Taylor is overseeing the census in Bedford County, which she said is used to distribute $400 billion every year to state and local governments and that it is vital that everyone fills out the federal forms.

She said every person counted translates to $100 in federal funds for the region.

But if 10 people decide not to fill out their census forms, "it will hurt us," Taylor said.

Taylor asked the city council for funding "to help generate community awareness" about the upcoming head count, noting that the county commission had already allocated $2,500.

She explained that the census bureau is asking city and county governments to help with those costs.

"They could have used that money they used on the Super Bowl ad," to pay for the community awareness costs, councilman Al Stephenson quipped, to which Taylor agreed.

The Census Bureau received some criticism last month for spending $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars for a 30-second commercial for the upcoming federal head count.

Confidentiality stressed

The forms are to be mailed during mid-March. Each one will be coded, so that census workers will know where the forms are going.

If residents fail to fill out the form, they should be expecting a knock at the door from a census worker.

All workers that will be compiling the census will have to take a basic skills test, be fingerprinted and have an FBI background check completed.

The census workers will also "be sworn to confidentiality," Taylor said, warned that if they divulge any information, they face five years in prison and a fine of $50,000.

Taylor said that these facts in particular are being shared with Shelbyville's Latino and Somali communities, due to a low count during the last census.

She said that 65 percent of the Latino community did not fill out the census last time in Bedford County.

"That's not good," Taylor said.

In 2006, an additional head count was done in Shelbyville, Taylor explained, so that everyone could be counted in order for the city to receive its current share of federal funding.

"We don't want to get into anybody's business, but we need to get a head count so we can get our share of the billions of dollars from the federal government," she said.

Taylor said an outreach program has commenced in those communities to explain that money from the census will help provide money for services that would benefit them, such as schools and community centers.

Outreach efforts will take place at businesses such as Walmart and Kroger, and awareness will be also be raised in the county's schools.

If an accurate head count is not compiled, another special census will have to be done at the city's expense, she explained.

Taylor says that help won't be for just the foreign-born community, but local folks "who have trouble with the form as well."