Officials with the Lexington Area Census Office are in full-scale door to door recruitment mode. The Lexington office is responsible for coordinating follow-up head counts in scores of central and southeastern counties.
Starting in mid-March Kentuckians can begin to make their household numbers be counted. Census Bureau Deputy Director Phillip Lutz said close to $700 billion nationally is redistributed to communities for such things as housing, road projects, and health clinics - all based on Census data. Lutz added census tampering has not be a major issue. “We ask people to respond to the census to the best of their knowledge. It’s required by law. We have not had issue with false reporting. Some people do make mistakes.” Said Lutz.
Lexington Area Census Office Manager John Shotwell said a sound economy is making it challenging to find follow-up census workers. He noted it’s hard to know just how many enumerators will be needed. “That’s difficult to say because we don’t really know for sure how many we’re going to need, because the need is determined by how many people do not send in the Census forms. So, we will determine that need once we determine how many households we’re going to have to call on. But, it will be thousands,” explained Shotwell.
Shotwell said that door to door effort is expected to start in late April or early May.
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