| G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com
Category:
CHICOPEE – The federal census is coming next year and Chicopee has started planning to make sure every resident is counted.
At an introductory meeting about the census on Nov. 13, the city’s Geographic Information Systems Director Michelle Santere explained that every person in the city is worth about $2,372 in federal funding that gets given to the Commonwealth and then “trickles down” to Chicopee.
Conducted every 10 years and mandated by the Constitution, the census helps determine federal funding and the division of congressional district, among other things.
Chicopee Registrar of Voters Janina Surdyka said the city will take steps to ensure certain problematic demographic groups – children under the age of five, people with limited English skills and the homeless, for instance – receive the correct counting.
Susan Hagen, US Census Partnership Specialist, said, “It’s really important to get the message out.”
She emphasized that census information is protected. “The private, personal information is never published,” she stressed.
Hagen said that in 210 there was a “big under-count” of children in the census.
For the first time, Hagen noted the census would be online. Replying to the census questions online is the most cost-effective way of undertaking the project, she said.
There will still be a “massive” recruitment effort to hire census takers, Hagen said. These census takers will go to the homes of people who have not responded online.
“The challenge is to get enough census takers as employment is higher,” she added.
People interested in the job will be able to apply online for it. It is a 24 hour-a-week job that requires a background check. Applicants must be 18 years old and the pay is $18 an hour, Hagen said. For more information, go to https://2020census.gov/en/jobs.html.
A controversy about the 2020 census has been a question about whether or not the respondent is a citizen. Hagen said that question has been removed and will not be part of any interview.
“We still have distrust [about the census],” she noted.
Another situation that can cause distrust about answering census question is “complex living arrangements,” Hagen said. “It doesn’t matter,” she added.
Chicopee, like other communities, will be forming a “Complete Count Committee,” which will include local leaders to urge participation in the census.
The committee “is really what you make of it,” she added.
The city plans to form its committee over the winter to be ready for the census, which begins in April 2020.