Franklin County Commissioners on Tuesday recognized St. George Island resident Pat O'Connell for her work with the local census drive

Franklin County Commissioners on Tuesday recognized St. George Island resident Pat O'Connell for her work with the local census drive.

O'Connell was the head of the Franklin County Complete Count Committee which is overseeing the effort to get local people to fill out the census.

She left the position at the end of May.

Even though the county got very little federal funding to advertise the census, O'Connell was able to find money to run almost 1200 radio ads, record 6 youtube videos, place a story every week in the Apalachicola Times, run ads on Forgotten Coast TV, put out 1500 yard signs, and print up thousands of flyers that were distributed at food banks, covid-19 testing sites and other busy locations.

O'Connell was given a resolution of appreciation for her work and said she will likely rejoin the effort this fall as the census completion date has been moved to October the 31st.

But even with all that work, only about 32 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.

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.

You can fill out your census now at http://www.census2020.gov.

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