New Mexico prepares for census count with new hires
Santa Fe New Mexican – As a field organizer knocking on doors for presidential and state government campaigns, Lynn Trujillo was assigned to neighborhoods in Sandia Pueblo, where she grew up. Some of the homes on the voter list provided by campaigns were no longer occupied, while other households did not have an address.
But she didn’t need a list.
Trujillo, who is now New Mexico’s secretary of Indian affairs, said she knew the community’s roads and the families living down each one and was able to knock on all the right doors.
From downtown Albuquerque to the Navajo Nation to Silver City, the state needs more local people who are willing to walk their communities’ streets for the 2020 census, the first able to be completed online. The U.S. Census Bureau and state officials estimate a need for 4,000 to 4,500 workers to count residents between April and September 2020 because the internet doesn’t stretch to all corners of New Mexico.
“Data isn’t always reflective of the community. When I was working for campaigns, I would look at that list and know which addresses were wrong,” Trujillo said. “Recruiting from your own community is essential. We need to ensure Census Bureau workers speak the same Native languages. We’re in the process now of trying to get people signed up to do that.”
The Census Bureau did not have an estimate for how many workers — called enumerators, who earn around $15 an hour, depending on the county — are currently approved to work in the state.
In 2010, according to the nonprofit New Mexico Counts, about 2 percent of the state’s population wasn’t counted. A similar undercount next year could cost the state nearly $1.5 billion in funding for food benefits, Medicaid, education, transportation and other programs over the next 10 years.
“We have realized through data over last four decades that the most impact in response rates comes from local trusted voices,” said Sergio Martinez, a partnership coordinator for the Census Bureau in New Mexico. “That is the best strategy we can communicate.”
A staff of 13 Census Bureau employees has been communicating that strategy in training sessions with county-based “complete count committees,” he said. The state is in the process of dividing up $3.5 million among New Mexico’s 33 counties for the census effort, with appropriations ranging from nearly $600,000 for Bernalillo County to $10,000 for Mora and Los Alamos.
The U.S. Department of Indian Affairs is receiving $400,000 for tribal outreach efforts. County and Pueblo organizers say that funding, expected to be available in October, will mostly go toward local media campaigns to encourage people to both participate in the census and to work as an enumerator.
Santa Fe County is receiving nearly $138,000 in state funding for its complete count committee.
Krista Kelley, a private consultant hired by the county to oversee the census-counting project, said the local census participation rate — the number of people who filled out a census form — was 67 percent in 2000 and 68 percent in 2010.
Kelley worries the technological upgrade to online census forms will be meaningless for large swaths of the state’s population.
“I assume that part of the reason why they are rolling it out over internet is to try to utilize the budget as efficiently as they possible can, but the internet doesn’t necessarily lead to higher count numbers,” Kelley said. “Lack of internet is a big issue, and a majority of seniors may not have access to a computer. That’s why the work of enumerators is still going to be very important.”
Some counties will spend their state census appropriation on computers with internet access.
“Some of our small mining districts are look at trying to set up computers and have staff to help people get online and fill out the census,” said Michael Larisch, the planning director for Grant County in southwestern New Mexico. “We’re working with water associations to send census reminders with water bills that say we have computers at public libraries or county offices where we can help you get online and started on the process.”
Larisch said the Grant County government has spoken with Hidalgo Medical Services, a nonprofit health care organization, about recruiting drivers who deliver meals to senior citizens to also work as enumerators. In total, he estimated the county of nearly 4,000 square miles and around 28,000 people will need 22 enumerators for an accurate count.
According to the Census Bureau, every household on its residential address list will receive an invitation in March 2020 to participate in the census online or over the phone. A reminder will be sent in April before the Census Bureau begins sending paper forms to households that have not responded.
After that, enumerators will hit the streets with clipboards to visit homes and help residents fill out forms. To recruit for that effort, community leaders are hoping for further commitment from the state in the budget for the next fiscal year.
“Some of our Indian reservations don’t exactly have an address system that fits into urban areas,” Trujillo said. “Finding people is a part of the challenge. That’s why it’s so important to rely on individuals who are from that community.
“I’m hopeful that there will be more money,” she added. “I know our tribes and our counties will put it to good use.”
Source: US Government Class
