Mayor says Logan may have been undercounted
Logan may have been undercounted by as many as 5,000 people in the 2000 Census, resulting in a potential loss of more than $1 million, said Logan Mayor Doug Thompson. Utah State University may be part of the problem.
“Dormitories are a difficult issue at best for the Census Bureau,” said Mark Teuscher, countywide planner.
He said USU records weren’t current enough to be of use to the Census Bureau, and it is hard to get entirely accurate counts in a dormitory.
Much of the federal and state funding for cities is based on population, so it is no surprise city and state leaders across the United States are challenging the results of the 2000 Census. Thompson said he and others have been unofficially keeping track of numbers in Logan since the 1990 census, and he believes the population for the city is between 46,000 and 48,000. The Census Bureau put Logan’s population at 42,670.
“When their estimates are below what we’d been estimating for a long time, there’s reason for us to follow up,” Thompson said. “We’ve been keeping track of building permits. Let’s say the difference is 5,000 people. That amounts to approximately $500,000 in lost sales tax and another $100,000 in road funds. On top of that, if we had 50,000 people, which we thought we had a shot at, we’d automatically qualify for a $900,000 grant from HUD (the Office of Housing and Urban Development).”
Thompson said he thought the census could have done a better job recruiting citizens to help with the census.
“I was disappointed in their efforts,” he said. “They weren’t very creative, enthusiastic or involved.”
Associate Professor E. Helen Berry, of the department of Sociology at USU, doesn’t agree with Thompson. Berry, who also runs the Population Research Lab at USU, said the Census Bureau had a huge outreach program to recruit local officials.
“I think it’s likely that there was an accurate count,” Berry said. “We’re not a hard-to-reach population. Logan is not particularly remote. Our numbers are probably among the most accurate.”
She added that funding in Utah is based on population more than most other states.
“It’s in every politician’s best interest – really every citizen’s best interest – to have more people in their communities,” she said. “Utah files more appeals than any other state.”
Berry said one reason there may be a discrepancy between Thompson’s numbers and the Census Bureau’s is declining household size.
“Declining household size has been a common trend in Utah,” she said. “We’re getting more retirees – people who have no kids living with them.”
Teuscher agreed with Berry that declining family size in Cache Valley may have had an effect on the census. He said the Census Bureau released its population numbers already, but won’t release its housing numbers for another six months.
“Housing counts are easy to check,” Teuscher said. “If the census says there are 50 houses in a community, and I go count 100, then I know they missed something. But it’s real hard for me to get a population count, because every household member on a block would have to be standing outside to be counted, and that’s not going to happen.”