Fill out the census. That’s the message to residents from local governments, including Lincoln County and the city of Kemmerer.

Local governments have a stake in a full count because more than $400 billion is allocated to communities based on census data each year, according to the 2010 Census Partner Proclamation approved by the Kemmerer city council Monday night. The Lincoln County commissioners signed a similar proclamation Tuesday of last week.

The higher a census population, the more money flows into local government coffers. “This is so important and as we were told, it’s in our hands to make sure everyone in Lincoln County gets counted,” wrote Lincoln County clerk Jeanne Wagner in an email to local media.

Glenn Cook, a partnership assistant with the U.S. census, said that each person counted translates into $100 to $500 in federal funding, plus $823 in state funding, according to the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division.

“A lot of people just don’t understand the impact of the census and what it’s used for and how it’s used,” Cook said. “People complain about a pothole not getting fixed, and they didn’t get counted? That might be why that pothole didn’t get fixed.”

Wagner said that citizens and non-citizens need to be counted. “People ask why non-citizens are counted, but it’s because they’re using our roads and our infrastructure and our hospitals,” she said.

Besides money, the census is used to determine voting districts and “where to locate schools, day care centers, roads and public transportation, hospitals and other facilities,” according to the Census Partner Proclamation.

The U.S. Constitution mandates a population count at least every 10 years to determine Congressional representation. By law, the census is due to the president by Dec. 31 and is confidential for 72 years.

Census forms will be mailed within a few months, and in May or June, census workers begin visiting households that do not return a form. “If you don’t want somebody knocking on your door, fill it out and get it back,” Wagner said.

She cautioned residents to be careful of fraud and not to give out their social social security number to a “census worker.”

The Lincoln County library has also made available space for a part-time census helper but has not heard whether or not the position will be filled, said Lincoln County library director Brenda McGinnis. “The library’s just looking to play the role we always play, as a place to get information,” she said.

While attempting to count the number of people in an area, the census also attempts to count the number of people it’s not counting. Census workers in 2000 determined that they had a final nationwide response of about 67 percent, up from 61 percent in 1990.

These rates reflect “how many housing units returned a census questionnaire by mail, used a Be Counted form, or provided census responses over the telephone or Internet,” according to www.census.gov.

Lincoln County responses 10 years ago didn’t meet Wyoming’s statewide participation of 66 percent, either. In 2000, census data indicates that 56 percent of Lincoln County residents responded to the census. “Our goal is to be much higher than that,” Wagner said.

In south Lincoln County, some municipalities fared better than others. Final response rates in the 2000 census, available at www.census.gov, put Cokeville at 72 percent, Diamondville at 67 percent, Kemmerer just below at 65 percent and LaBarge at a mere 40 percent.

Kemmerer dropped 12.2 percent in population from the 1990 to the 2000 censuses, from 3,020 to 2,651. LaBarge had a similar population drop, while Cokeville grew 2.6 percent and Diamondville lost a whopping 17.1 percent of its population.