The city of Fort Worth could stand to gain millions in new federal dollars from the 2020 census, according to Mayor Betsy Price.
‘Census Day’ is April 1, 2020. It is conducted every 10 years by the U.S. Census Bureau to count every resident in the United States. The decennial census count will inform spending decisions for the next decade.
The census is crucial for high-gross cities like Fort Worth, Mayor Price said. Federal funding is based on the count so if it is wrong, the city could receive less than what it should receive.
“Last census we had, we were much smaller. This time, we stand to gain a lot of federal dollars,” Price told NBC 5. “People need to remember these are your tax dollars that you’re paying in income tax and other fees to the federal government. It’s our chance to get those back for roads for infrastructure of all types to address transit issues, for CDBG grants which is community development block grants that we use to improve neighborhoods.”
Price said in past year alone, more than 20,000 new residents came to Fort Worth. In the past nine years, the city jumped from 17th largest city in the U.S. to 13th with a population size of close to 900,000.
While roads and infrastructure are among big ticket items the federal dollars would ideally be spent on, Price said there’s other areas that benefit from census data.
“Even through workforce solutions, our employment center – we get $58 million that we put towards child care. That will increase, so there’s a lot at stake here. We want people to feel very comfortable and we want everybody counted,” she said. “Think also about parks and recreation. Businesses count on that data. They want to know how many people are here when they relocate or when they expand. How many people will they be servicing? Who will buy their goods?”
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The Complete Count Committee co-chaired by city council members Carlos Flores and Kelly Allen Gray has been tasked with making sure every resident is counted in the 2020 census.
“We have representatives up to four, I think, from Fort Worth ISD, for example. We have representatives from each chamber of commerce,” Councilman Flores said.
Low income residents, along with the African-American, Asian, and Hispanic populations are among the historically undercounted. Flores told NBC 5, they are actively brainstorming ideas on outreach and heavily rely on their six committees: government, education, faith-based, media, community-based organizations, and business.
“For example, we were talking to the education committee last. They had ideas about informational flyers be distributed from the staff Fort Worth ISD to their students and the faith based community putting again, informational flyers, that have concise and helpful information about the census in their church circulars,” he explained.
Price said she’s confident the committee will make sure the count is as accurate as possible.
