3/9/2010 3:10:00 PM U.S. Census is under way in Yavapai County
By Joanna Dodder Nelms Contributing Reporter
U.S. Census workers are starting to visit homes throughout rural Yavapai County.
Census surveyors will visit all of the homes in the county outside of municipalities through March 19, said Ellie Foster, manager of the local Census office in Flagstaff.
They also will visit people with only Post Office mailing addresses and all the homes on Indian reservations, along with the municipalities of Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City, upon the direction of the national office.
That adds up to about 180,000 homes out of the total approximately 300,000 homes in this region, which basically covers all of northern Arizona except the Navajo Nation that has hired its own Census workers. It's the second-largest Census region in the country, she said. Yavapai County has about 87,000 households.
Other residents will start receiving pre-stamped Census questionnaires in the mail in mid-March, she said.
If they don't return the mailers by mid-April, they'll get a visit from Census workers by July.
"We try and capture every person so we can get an accurate count," Foster said.
The stakes are high for local governments. For every person counted inside their jurisdiction, local governments get $1,200 in federal government assistance each year for the next decade.
The money goes toward everything from Meals on Wheels to education, said Toni Ketchum, manager of Yavapai County's addressing/911 unit. She also chairs the county's "Complete County Committee" to help promote the Census.
"People just need to spend 10 minutes and fill out the questionnaires," Ketchum said. The forms include only 10 questions.
Local governments are helping the Census make special efforts to locate hard-to-find populations such as the homeless.
On March 31, Census workers will visit national forests, parking lots, homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
The U.S. Constitution has required the federal government to conduct a Census count every decade since 1790. The Founding Fathers wanted to make sure Congressional seats were fairly distributed. The Constitution doesn't differentiate between legal and illegal residents, either. All the information is confidential.
Ten years ago, only 72 percent of the residents returned surveys, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The Yavapai County mail return rate in 2000 was only 62 percent.
Census Director Robert Groves likes to remind citizens that for every 1 percent of the population that returns mailed Census questionnaires, the U.S. government saves $85 million on follow-up visits.
Census jobs available
The U.S. Census continues to hire approximately 1,800 temporary workers in northern Arizona through July.
People can call 866-861-2010 to get transferred to the local Flagstaff office toll free.
Field workers get $12 per hour. They must be at least 18 years old, citizens or legal residents of the U.S., pass a background check and exam, and get 40 hours of paid training. People can work flexible hours, part-time or full-time, days or evenings, through July.
Overtime is available.
"Recruiting in the Prescott area is going well," said Ellie Foster, who manages the local Census office.
Currently about 60 people are working in Yavapai County, she said.
