There are over 390 days between now and April 1, 2020.

And local officials are already working with that date in mind.

Why? It’s Census Day.

The Census doesn’t just impact Congressional representation or the number of electors states get in the Elector College.

According to a recent article in the March 2019 Township News, census data “drives how money for various federal and state programs and grants is distributed to local governments.”

Federally, that includes the article state, funding “toward such critical programs as Medicaid and Medicare, as well as grants for education and highway construction.

“The commonwealth, too, relies heavily on census data to allocate money for local improvements, services, and projects, including liquid fuels reimbursement, firemen’s relief funds, community development block grants, Act 13 funds and recycling grants.”

County Planner Dan Glotz said that the county will start pushing census information in about a month.

He said that “one of the big changes” is that there will not be a long-form version of the questionnaire in 2020 and that individuals will “have the option to do it over the internet.”

According to the Township News article, the State Data Center starting this spring will “seek parcel, building and 911 statistics from counties and develop a housing count for the Census Bureau to compare against its master file. Then in August, the bureau will use the most current list to begin address canvassing, both with boots on the ground and, for the first time, through a geographic database, to verify and update addresses.”

According to the Census Bureau, individuals will be able to respond online, by mail or over the phone – 95 percent of households will be contacted via mail, five percent will have a census taker drop off the information and less than one percent will be counted in person.

“We do this in very remote areas like parts of northern Maine, remove Alaska and in select American Indian areas that ask to be counted in person,” according to the Bureau.

For the majority of citizens, Bureau information indicates that invitations to respond online will be distributed between March 12 and March 20

“It doesn’t matter which initial invitation you get or how you get it – we will follow up in person with all households that don’t respond,” Bureau information stated.

Glotz said the county will form a Complete County Committee that he has been tasked with coordinating.

“We work jointly with Assessment,” he said, noting that the county’s Assessment Department manages GIS maps for the county.

“It’s really important we can get an accurate count,” he said. “(It) directly impacts funding.”