TERRE HAUTE —
The U.S. Census Bureau is going all-out to make sure everyone in America is counted for the 2010 census.
As part of that effort, the bureau is spending $212 million on its “integrated communications campaign,” which includes the distribution of free promotional gift items such as Census Bureau water bottles, baseball hats, shirts and letter openers.
But it’s not always clear how all of the items will be used.
“We’ll use it the best that we can,” said Darrel Zeck, leader of Terre Haute’s 2010 census “Complete Count Committee.” He recently received a large shipment of census promotional items, including posters, pens, pencils, keychains and backpacks. It’s up to the committee to find ways to use the bounty, he said. Some of the items the Terre Haute Complete Count Committee must find a way to distribute include 300 census tote bags, 200 lapel pins, 75 mousepads, 200 keychains, 100 backpacks, 2,000 stickers, hundreds of pens and pencils and dozens of letter openers, Zeck said.
Nationally, Complete Count Committees are expected to “use the promotional materials … to promote the Census and to urge community members to apply for jobs” with the Census Bureau, said Jim Accurso, a media specialist with the Census Bureau in Chicago.
Still, it’s not always easy to find the right use for some of the promotional items provided by the Census Bureau, Zeck noted.
For example, Terre Haute’s Complete Count Committee has 30 members. But the Census Bureau provided them with 120 custom embroidered golf shirts and 120 baseball hats stating “2010 Census – Terre Haute Complete Count Committee,” he said.
Rather than let the 90 extra hats and shirts go to waste, Zeck distributed them to local Census Bureau employment recruiters and others dealing face-to-face with the public on behalf of the 2010 census, he said.
The promotional items are designed to increase the number of people who return their census forms through the mail, Accurso said. And, if successful, the promotional items could actually save money for the Census Bureau, he said.
The average cost of counting people living in a home in a face-to-face census interview is $57, Accurso said. That’s far more than the cost of postage for each person returning his or her census form through the mail, he noted.
Zeck understands the goal of the promotional items, but he believes the Terre Haute Complete Count Committee might have found different types of promotional items more helpful.
For example, Zeck said the Census Bureau supplied the Complete Count Committee with informational fliers stating that the 2010 census only includes 10 questions and takes just 10 minutes to complete. Those fliers were very helpful, he said. Unfortunately, the committee received only a relatively small number of them. Fortunately, two local companies stepped up and donated materials and printing to provide thousands of additional fliers, Zeck said.
There are other apparent miscues between the promotional items sent by the bureau and local needs, Zeck noted. “I don’t need 500 posters in Spanish,” he said holding a thick stack of glossy 2010 census posters printed in that language.
Even a small increase in the percentage of people returning their census forms through the mail will save the Census Bureau a lot of money, Accurso said. For every 1 percent increase in the number of Americans who return their forms in the mail, the bureau saves $85 million, he said.
Congress set aside $14.5 billion for the 2010 census, Accurso said. If enough savings are achieved, the bureau may actually “return money to the Treasury,” he said.
In 2000, 72 percent of Americans returned their census forms through the mail, according to the Census Bureau Web site, www.2010census.gov. Beginning Monday, a running tally of the 2010 census response rate, including county and even neighborhood data, will be available on that Web site, Accurso said.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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