THE CENSUS. WE ALL COUNT.
SHAPE YOUR FUTURE BY LISA HOLDER
In addition to determining the allocation of federal funds, the census also determines representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and is used for redistricting. This is important locally, as census counts will determine the boundaries of voting districts, including county and city commission districts as well as school board districts. Florida added two additional seats in the House of Representatives in 2010 and is projected to add two or more seats with the 2020 census. In order to increase response rates, the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners on May 14, 2019 created the U.S. 2020 Decennial Census Seminole County Complete Count Committee comprised of 25 appointed community leaders that includes 18 M Y S A N F O R D M A G A Z I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 2 0
a representative from each of the seven Seminole County cities. A major responsibility of the committee is to create, adopt and implement an action plan that identifies the roles and responsibilities of the committee, including a methodical approach to increase census awareness by educating residents. The committee is establishing community partnerships, attending community events throughout the county, brainstorming different approaches to reach the traditionally undercounted and non-responders to the census, as well as debunking common myths due to the lack of understanding about the census. The committee includes several subcommittees covering a wide array of topics purposely chosen to cover diverse community outreach. The subcommittee topics include education, faith-based, media, business, community-based, and government. The Action Plan can be found on the Seminole County website, www.seminolecountyfl.gov. “The census is also important as local governments are required by the Florida Legislature to develop goals, objectives and policies to manage growth and development within our communities, driven in direct proportion to population counts�, said Michelle Smith, Media and Business Subcommittee Chair.
Phil Kaprow, Chair of the Seminole County Complete Count Committee
Working in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, the volunteer work of the committee is to create census awareness within our community and to achieve an accurate and complete population count by maximizing the resident response rate to the census within Seminole County and, in our case, residents of Sanford. The Census Bureau defines
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esponding to the census count is a civic duty, occurring every 10 years, as described in Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, mandated since 1790. Accurate population responses to the census equates to the allocation of increased potential federal and state funding for programs and services, such as housing assistance, education, public safety, transportation, and public health programming, which could impact the Sanford community in a significant way.
