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March 15, 2010

Be counted — 03/16/10

Returning your census form saves tax dollars, helps area

Anonymous The Daily Independent Mon Mar 15, 2010, 06:05 PM EDT

Some area residents received their 2010 Census questionnaires in Monday’s mail. Others will receives them Today and Wednesday, but by the end of Wednesday, more than 120 million households in the United States should have received their questionnaires.

Here’s our advice: Fill them out immediately and return them by mail. Although April 1 is the “official” date of the census, there is no need for most of us to wait until that date to complete the questionnaires because the number of people living in our households is not likely to change between now and then.

There are only 10 questions on the 2010 Census questionnaires, making it the shortest since the first census way back in 1790. The questions are not tough ones and do not unduly pry into the private lives of people living in America. The U.S. Census Bureau simply wants to know how many people are living in each state, county and incorporated village, town and city on April 1, 2010, whether they are living in the U.S. legally or not.

Your first response may be to put your census questionnaire aside until you have more time to study, but once that is done, the odds of returning it decline significantly. With only 10 questions, the questionnaire only takes a few seconds to complete. There is no reason to put it off. Do it now and get it over with.

Failure to return your questionnaire is a waste of your tax dollars. Households from which no questionnaires are returned will be visited by a census worker beginning May 1. The Census Bureau says that every 1 percent of residents who return the forms saves taxpayers between $80 million and $90 million by not having to send census takers door-to-door to get the information needed for an accurate census from those households that did not return their forms.

The census results are important. More than $400 billion in federal funds are distributed each year to states and to local communities based on their populations. If many residents of a community are not counted, it loses out on its fair share of the federal pie.

The number of seats each state had in the U.S. House of Representatives is determined by the census. For example, Kentucky lost one House seat as a result of the 1990 census. It was not that the state’s population declined between 1980 and 1990; it is just that the population of other states grew much faster. Inside Kentucky, new boundaries for the 100 seats in the Kentucky House of Representatives and the 38 seats in the Kentucky Senate will be redrawn based on the 2010 census. Within a county or city, lines of school districts, county fiscal courts and some city council or commission members will be redrawn based on the census results.

Fill out your census questionnaire and return it as soon as you get it. By doing so, you will be helping to save the federal government millions of dollars and you will be doing your city, county, your state and the nation a huge favor by doing your small part in making the census as accurate as possible.

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Editorials

Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.

February 10, 2012
Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.

February 9, 2012
'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.

February 7, 2012
Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.

February 7, 2012
Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

February 6, 2012
Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.

February 6, 2012
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February 4, 2012
Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.

February 3, 2012
Released early
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February 2, 2012
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February 1, 2012
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Returning your census form saves tax dollars, helps area

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