Today kicks off the once-every-ten-years census count. The Census Bureau will mail out a 10 question form to 120 million households starting in March of this year. In mid-March these questionnaires will start showing up in mailboxes.
Fill it out and send it back. 67% of households mailed back forms in 2000. Those households that don’t respond are mailed a postcard, and those that still don’t respond get a visit from a census taker. Each step raises the cost of the census exponentially, so mailing back the census form saves money.
The Federal Constitution requires a census every 10 years to configure congressional districts and assign Electoral College votes to the states. Congress uses the census when it divvies up more than $400 billion each year in federal aid to state and local governments, so there are potential fiscal benefits for Illinois and Downers Grove. Population played a factor in where stimulus money went, in where state money goes, and it was a factor in the getting the Belmont underpass approved. Under-counted means underfunded.
Census data is also used by government agencies and private companies to locate pools of skilled workers. DG has lots of skilled workers, and accurately responding to the census form puts us on the map when companies look for desirable places to locate. The actual responses themselves are confidential by law, and can’t be used to trace a specific responder. An accurate head count also matters when the state calculates Private Activity Bond caps for communities. PAB’s are an economic development tool that Downers Grove have used in the past to enable senior citizen developments and private companies use low cost loans, and IHDA to generate low cost mortgages. There is no direct financial exposure to the village for this type of economic assistance.
“…and it was a factor in the getting the Belmont underpass approved.”
We’re building an underpass? Is this true?…I haven’t heard about it.
Filling it out is better than filling out your tax return. WE as a community get money from the Federal Government…which is only going to get bigger, based on the info you tell them.
I don’t think people know how important this truly is to our pocket books.
A couple of links regarding the underpass:
From the village:
http://www.downers.us/assets/production/doc_related_doc/file/1874/Belmont_Underpass_Presentation_by_Metra__08-12-08_.pdf
http://www.downers.us/assets/production/doc_related_doc/file/2013/Belmont_Underpass.pdf
And on the DGreport:
http://www.dgreport.com/index.php/2008/06/13/cross-go-and-collect-83-million/
http://www.dgreport.com/index.php/2008/10/24/diggin-it/
DGlifer- Getting information out to residents is a constant challenge.
A lot of the information goes unread and unnoticed. The printed word is usually (but not always) a week or more behind the curve. Blogs like this are handy because they can get information out faster. Take this post, it relates what is scheduled to happen. From EJ’s recent series of 58 posts, there’s several thousand readers who are getting interested in at least reading about 58 finances and roof repairs. That’s good.
Just wait, when Belmont goes into high gear this year, there’ll be plenty of people asking what’s happening, and how long it will go on (should be two more years if everything goes smoothly and on time-knock on wood).