On Tuesday evening, September 10, 2019, Erin Musland, a specialist from the U.S. Census Bureau, presented important information regarding the 2020 Census to members of the Foster County community. The focus of the meeting was to emphasize how important it is to obtain a complete count of persons living in our state. That count determines how many representatives our state gets in Congress and is used to determine legislative district boundaries. On our local level, the census count affects the boundaries of our Foster County commission districts. As well, the census count determines the amount of federal funds that our community will receive to implement many of the programs and services that are so valuable to us... things such as new roads, schools, emergency services and more.
A few important changes for the 2020 census show that the Census Bureau is trying to make it easier for residents to report their census data. For instance, this will be the first time people will be able to report online or by phone, as well as by mail. Also, the questionnaire, itself, is much shorter... only eleven basic questions.
Erin Musland emphasized the need to assure everyone that the information collected is confidential. Personal responses cannot be used in any way to identify a person. Furthermore, information cannot be shared with immigration enforcement agencies, such as ICE, or law enforcement agencies such as the FBI or police. The information is used only to produce statistics.
At the end of the meeting, it was determined that Brad Solberg, Foster County auditor, and Jennifer Gast, Carrington City auditor, would chair a local "Complete Count Committee" of community volunteers endeavoring to get an accurate count of people in our local area.
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