Census Day is not deadline for sending form

April 1 is only a target date to collect federal government data, says Augusta count director

Web posted April 1, 2000

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By Clarissa J. Walker
Staff Writer

It's not too late.

Though today is Census Day and your incomplete Census 2000 form is sitting on the kitchen table, the federal government still wants it, officials say.

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``(April 1) was not meant to be an absolute drop-dead deadline to get the thing submitted in,''said John Harlan, director of the Augusta census office.

Ideally, the U.S. Census Bureau wanted the count to be a snapshot of the United States -- households, incomes, residents' ages, schools, etc. -- in the condition they are in April 1.

``We want to know what was going on in each household on April 1,'' Mr. Harland said. Even if the deadline has passed when the form is completed.

Census takers in the area -- and the rest of Georgia -- hope to get as many forms returned as possible in the next few weeks, because so far Georgia has an unexpectedly low return rate.

``We've done everything on the face of the earth to try to show the importance of the census to folks,'' said Gov. Roy Barnes, who made a TV commercial to promote the count. ``It's very important to us.''

The 45 percent response rate from Georgia trails the national rate of 49 percent. And as of Friday evening, Augustans had returned only 41 percent of the 87,058 forms that were mailed to households.

The first set of statistics will be compiled April 11-17. That's when the census takers will map out the neighborhoods of the homes they will have to visit door to door to get missing information, Mr. Harlan said.

``We are looking at hiring a lot more people than we thought,'' he said.

For information about the census, call (706) 823-1830.

Associated Press reports were used in this article.

Reach Clarissa J. Walker at (706) 828-3851.