Census forms began arriving in 120 million mailboxes across America on Monday, but the majority of Blaine County residents are an exception. Census workers in the valley will be delivering the questionnaires by hand.
Everyone should have a form by March 19.
Sergio Romero, Idaho's census partnership specialist, said mailing isn't allowed here because the government prohibits delivery of census forms to boxes. Sun Valley and Ketchum don't even have home mail delivery. Blaine County Commissioner Angenie McCleary, county contact with the federal government for the census, said most county residents primarily use post office boxes even if it's not required. Even though Hailey has postal delivery, City Clerk Mary Cone said census workers started delivering the forms by hand about a week ago in certain city areas to ensure that everyone is reached.
Romero said post office boxes prevent achieving an accurate reading of the population—the whole purpose of the census—because residents aren't required to have them, and people can have multiple boxes. He said the Census Bureau prefers to mail the forms, which is far cheaper at a cost of 84 cents a form—42 cents to mail out and 42 cents for return postage. Each census worker in the valley is paid between $10.50 and $13.50 an hour, with 50 cents reimbursement per travel mile. The same workers are paid $22 an hour in San Jose, Calif., one of the most expensive areas in the country.
For every census form that isn't returned by mail by April 1, the bureau must send a worker to knock on the resident's door, at an exorbitant expense. The bureau estimates that if every household completed and mailed back the 10-question form, taking 10 minutes to fill out, taxpayers could reduce the census' cost by $1.5 billion. About $85 million in operational costs is saved for every percentage point of the population returning the form by mail, whether it was hand-delivered or not.
This particularly applies to Blaine County and its cities, which scored an F in participation rates during the 2000 Census. But laziness isn't entirely to blame.
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"We're aware that in Blaine County there are a lot of second- and third-home owners," Romero said. "We hope that, at least, the response rate will increase because of the workforce in Hailey and Bellevue."
And forms are delivered to every household, even if it's the non-traditional residence of a homeless person.
The nation's average participation rate in 2000 was 72 percent and Idaho's was a little better at 75 percent. But Blaine County's was far below at 46 percent. The cities of Hailey, Bellevue and Carey fared better than the county cumulative, with an average participation rate of 66 percent among them. However, Ketchum and Sun Valley dragged the county's score into the dirt. Only 17 percent of Sun Valley and 34 percent of Ketchum's forms were filled out in 2000.
Ketchum Planning Manager Stefanie Leif acknowledged the city's historically low participation rate, referring to the same reason of many second-home owners.
"We'll always have a below-average participation rate for that reason," she said.
The many empty apartments and houses will only compound this drag in participation rate for the area, a problem the bureau said will be shared by much of America for the nation's 23rd census. The first census was in 1790, when the nation's population was 3.9 million, equivalent to the current population of Los Angeles.
"The 2010 Census faces special challenges ... including the housing crisis which has resulted in higher rates of vacant housing that must be visited to ensure a complete count," the census reported.
For this reason, census workers in the valley will be returning to some of the same doors during this summer that they knocked on in March, even if every resident returns a census form. The bureau estimates that 48 million American households will not respond by mail, vacant or not, requiring 650,000 census workers to follow up in person.
Filling out the census is required by law because the federal government uses the population information to allocate seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and to redistrict state legislatures. Census data also helps determine the distribution of $400 billion in federal funds to state and local governments every year, for schools, roads, health care and other critical programs. That's $4 trillion in funding between censuses taken every decade.
If you have questions or don't receive a census form by March 19, the bureau has set up assistance centers in Atkinsons' Markets in Hailey and Ketchum, Albertsons in Hailey and city halls.
Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com
Beware of scams
An unidentified group in Jerome County has targeted seniors, trying to charge $6 each for filling out the census. Sergio Romero, Idaho's census partnership specialist, said to ignore anyone trying to charge for the census. Taking the census is entirely free. Blaine County Commissioner Angenie McCleary said no such scam is known to exist in the county but to still watch out for it."Scams are always a concern with this big of a project," she said.
