Franklin County has agreed to buy a
full page newspaper ad urging county residents to fill out their
census and reminding them what it will cost the county if they don't.
Since January the Franklin County
census committee has run almost 1200 radio ads, recorded 6 youtube
videos, had a story every week in the Apalachicola Times, ran ads on
Forgotten Coast TV, did a clickthrough banner ad for local websites,
put out 1500 yard signs, and printed up thousands of flyers that have
been distributed at food banks, covid-19 testing sites and other busy
locations.
And after all of that only about 29
percent of Franklin County residents have filled out their forms.
Much of the problem is that for the
first time this year the census is mostly on-line which means people
without good internet access aren't filling out their forms.
The COVID-19 pandemic is also affecting
the response rate.
But even so, Franklin County is still
well behind much of the rest of the state and the nation in
completing the census – the lowest completion rate is between
Lanark Village and Alligator Point where only 17 percent of homes
have completed the census.
The highest completion rate is in
Apalachicola, North of Highway 98, where about 46 percent of homes
have finished.
Not filling out the census will have a
big impact on how much federal funding Franklin County gets over the
next 10 years.
Each completed census is worth about
14,500 dollars a year for schools, fire departments, medicare
reimbursements, early childhood and special education and other
needed services.
This is money that we pay in taxes that
will only be returned to us if the government knows how many people
actually live here.
The one piece of good news is that the
census completion date has been moved to October the 31st
so there is time to get it done.
You can fill out your census now at
http://www.census2020.gov.
http://live.oysterradio.com/
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