News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
White County officials are looking at ways to increase the county’s U.S. Census response.
Kim England is the Complete Count Committee Coordinator for White County. She said that although response has good so far, they are hoping to get a full count within before the deadline set by the federal government.
“We are ahead of the curve,” England said. “Maybe a lot of counties are, and it could be the result of people being inside for the last two months and being kind of bored, and they took the time to fill it out online.”
England said getting an accurate count is critical to the county’s future. One of the ways officials are hoping to assist the response rate is to set up Census Response Centers around the county.
“We received some grant money through the State of Tennessee to help with the Census response,” England said. “We requested our money, and we were funded the money for tablet Chromebooks. It’s something where we can take a device out to the fire departments or the schools or any remote event to inform people about the Census. Also, if they haven’t filled out their form, then we would be able to do it there on the spot.”
The one thing standing in the way of opening the response centers are restrictions still in place from the COVID pandemic. England said as those restrictions lift, her committee will ramp up their Census efforts.
“Enumerators will start going door-to-door in our county on August 11,” England said. “People do have up until October to respond since extensions were put in place. The enumerators will be going out to those who haven’t responded.”
England said one quirk of the Census is that questionnaires can’t be delivered to post office boxes. She said people in that case will need to go online to fill out the form. They can also go to one of the offices in the county that can assist people with responding. Those offices include the White County Executive’s Office in the courthouse, the White County Library, and the UCHRA office in White County.
Originally, the U.S. Census had hoped to have all activities complete by the end of July. That date has been moved back to October 31. England said it takes about 10 minutes to fill out the online questionnaire.
