Sunday, February 07, 1999
Census miscounts cost locals
Tristate takes steps to ensure aid loses out on U.S. aid
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
For local governments, the U.S. Census that takes place every 10 years is as much about counting money as about counting people.
Every person who is not counted in the census — and there were more than 4 million nationwide in the 1990 census — ends up costing city and county governments thousands of dollars in state and federal funding over the decade.
Nine years ago, the city of Cincinnati's population of 358,000 was underestimated by 3.1 percent, according to a recent survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Because the federal government uses census figures as the basis for handing out billions in aid, Cincinnati's under-count cost local govern ment about $40 million for a wide variety of programs, including housing, highways, school lunch programs and health care.
Covington did not fare well either, according to the study. With an under-count of 8.8 percent, the Northern Kentucky city, with a 1990 census population of 43,000, lost about $13 million in federal and state funding.
A year before the actual head count begins, officials in Cincinnati and all over the Tristate are making preparations to try to avoid the substantial miscounts that occurred mainly in urban areas in the last census.
“We have to make sure that what happened in 1990 doesn't happen again,” said Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls. “We have to beat the drums; get people out of the woodwork. There is a lot riding on this.”
Nationally, the 1990 U.S. Census, with its population count of about 275 million, missed about 1.8 percent of the population; and census officials think the vast majority of those were low-income people in large urban areas — most being African-Americans or members of other minority groups.
Many big-city mayors, including Ms. Qualls, had wanted to be able to use “statistical sampling” in the 2000 census to account for people who will be missed in the actual census count.
But recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that statistical sampling — whereby part of the population is estimated, not actually counted — could not be used for the purpose of drawing new congressional district lines — one of the other principal uses of census data.
The court did not directly address the issue of using statistical sampling for other purposes, but Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a co-chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Census Monitoring Board, said the U.S. Census does not need statistical sampling to get an accurate count.
Mr. Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor, wants the census bureau to cross-check administrative records from social programs such as Medicaid, to find those under-counted poor and minorities.
“There are ways of finding people, using the records that are already out there,” Mr. Blackwell said.
While the U.S. Census Bureau is studying methods of getting an accurate count next year, officials in Hamilton County have been working on putting together a committee of community leaders to oversee the Hamilton County count. They are also veri fying addresses all over the county, many of which did not exist in 1990.
“Probably one-fourth of those who weren't counted in 1990 in Hamilton County weren't counted simply (because the U.S. Census Bureau) couldn't find their addresses,” said Tim Horsley, the project manager with the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission (RPC) who is working with U.S. Census officials.
Steve Sievers, an RPC planner who is working with Mr. Horsley on the census project, said the U.S. Census is hiring local people to be “address enumerators” who actually go out in the field to verify that housing units exist.
“These are local people we're looking for to do these jobs,” Mr. Sievers said. “People who know their own neighborhoods. People who know if Bob down the street has somebody living in his upstairs apartment.”
Cincinnati Councilman Paul Booth said he plans to get involved with the local steering committee, along with Mayor Qualls, “because we need to look out for the interests of the city.”
“If most of these people who are not counted are in the inner city, then I want to make sure the count locally has a city focus,” Mr. Booth said.
Ms. Qualls said that the irony of the under-count in Cincinnati is that the loss of federal dollars had the most impact on the people who were not counted — the urban poor.
“Many of these federal dollars help low-income people the most,” Ms. Qualls said. “We have to make people understand it's in their best interest to be counted.”
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