Shorter deadline for census may impact Bozeman, county - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle
There’s a lot riding on the results of the 2020 Census for Bozeman.
If the fast-growing city tops 50,000 residents counted this year, it’ll bring a host of new opportunities, like eligibility for more federal money and new expectations that come with being designated as an urbanized area.
However, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Monday that efforts to count all people living in the U.S. would end Sept. 30 — a month earlier than was planned.
“It’s hard to exaggerate how concerning that is,” Mayor Chris Mehl said.
U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said in a news release that the bureau will hire more employees in light of the new deadline. He said the bureau will “improve the speed of our count without sacrificing completeness.”
Mehl said an accurate census count is vital for business development, for local government planning and the programs it runs and to ensure fair political representation for the Gallatin Valley.
Whitney Bermes, spokesperson for Gallatin County, is part of the Bozeman/Gallatin Complete Count Committee. She said the group would be worried about any impact to the accuracy of the count as it could take away needed federal money for government programs.
But she said that it’s hard to know right now what will result from the shorter deadline.
In any case, Bermes said, the situation “really hammers home to us that residents need to be self-responding over phone and email.”
Census counting efforts, like door-knocking and online response collection, were originally scheduled to end July 31, but that got pushed to the end of October after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown field operations from March through May. Now, they’re scheduled to end in about six weeks.
“To willfully cut that short is incredibly short-sighted,” Mehl said.
In broad terms, Montana is set to receive about $2,000 per resident each year. That money goes toward paying for education, highways, health care and more than 300 other programs. The state could also get back a second seat in the U.S. House.
In Bozeman, hitting 50,000 residents would mean eligibility for new federal grants that have minimum population requirements. Those grants can be used by a city and its local nonprofits to fund social programs that help people secure housing and access public transportation.
Passing that 50,000 threshold also means the county, Belgrade and Bozeman would need to form a Metropolitan Planning Organization to help with transportation planning, which brings new regulations and expectations.
Gallatin County has a higher response rate than others in Montana — an estimated 63.4% of residents here have responded. However, the margin of error to get to 50,000 is slim.
Bozeman has been growing by about 3% to 4% per year since 2000. As of July 1, 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city’s population to be 49,831.
“It’s not a done deal by any means,” Mehl said.
2020-08-05 11:00:00Z
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/shorter-deadline-for-census-may-impact-bozeman-county/article_71cecb5e-77c2-51ec-8059-8f7af88af61c.html
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