LITTLE ROCK — More than a year after the release of the 2010 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau has already revised the populations of two Arkansas cities as it corrects errors made in counting the nation’s residents.
As of Friday, Chidester in Ouachita County and Dermott in Chicot County had gained residents through successful challenges of their counts, census records show. The two cities are among 33 other jurisdictions in 17 states nationwide that have already had their populations adjusted through the challenge process.
The revised counts have added to Arkansas’ population - now 2,915,919 - but that may change as the bureau reviews other cities’ pending challenges as well as those yet to be filed.
Charleston, Gilmore, Harrisburg, Reed and Trumann were waiting to hear if discrepancies they’ve found will be corrected through the bureau’s Count Question Resolution Program.And, Pine Bluff officials said they may still file a formal challenge over the city’s 2010 population, which fell below 50,000 for the first time since the 1960s.
Counting as many residents as possible matters to cities because much of the money municipalities receive from the government is based on their official populations.
The Census Bureau will allow governments to contest the calculations of their 2010 populations through June 2013, but only on grounds that the bureau used the wrong boundaries or coded residents incorrectly. The bureau also will look for any specific types of housing such as prisons or dormitories that might have been erroneously included, duplicated or excluded.
Dermott Mayor Floyd Gray said uncounted inmates immediately caught his attention when he saw his city’s census results last year. It was the same mistake made in 2000 when the city also successfully challenged its population, he said.
“They didn’t say specifically, but I’m almost certain they missed the prison,” he said, referring to the Arkansas Department of Correction’s Delta Regional Unit.
The city’s original count listed only 54 people living in a “group quarters” population such as a prison. The Delta Regional Unit alone can house more than 500 inmates, according to the Correction Department.
“The prison is down from us, and it looks to people who are not familiar with our boundaries that it might be in the county. ... It was very easy to peruse over the results and catch it again,” he said.
Gray said he also suspects that the Census Bureau missed the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Southeast Arkansas Regional Juvenile Program, but the bureau wouldn’t specifically cite the nature of the error in revising the city’s population.
With the revision, Dermott added 573 residents - all in group quarters - bringing its official population to 2,889. The original count was 2,316.
Chidester gained two people that the revised census indicates stem from the addition of two dwellings in the city. The data don’t contain additional details, and phone messages left last week for Chidester Mayor Bobby Box Sr. weren’t returned by Friday. An e-mail from the city’s recorder/treasurer Jeanette Ponder said the mayor was out of town until this morning.
Most of the pending contested populations involve fewer than 100 people who were left out of the official count because of discrepancies between a city’s boundaries and those the bureau had on file in 2010.
Tommie Smith, mayor of the small Delta community of Reed, said that by his count 52 residents were missed in the Census Bureau’s report of 141 residents in 2010.
“When they sent the map out, I noticed that everything west of the railroad track was left out of it,” Smith said. That included his house, he said. “I was missed, too,” he said laughing.
Trumann Mayor Sheila Walters said her city was missing about 56 people who live on a street the Census Bureau mistakenly left out.
In Charleston in western Arkansas, City Attorney John Verkamp said about seven blocks worth of people had been left out of the census count. He didn’t have a specific number.
“The change in the census was glaringly different from what it had been. According to the census numbers, the city had lost population, and we knew that the city had gained population,” Verkamp said.
In Harrisburg, Mayor Randy Mills said 47 people were left out because one full street and half of another on the city’s north side had not been included in the count.
Making sure those few dozen people are counted is important, Mills said, because the state has been using the 2010 results since March 2011 to calculate turn-back money distributed to municipalities. The funding is determined on a per-resident basis.
“Any moneys we’ve received since were under the 2010 number ... the 2,288. We should be 2,335,” Mills said. “It’s not many, but for a small town, it’s a lot.”
PINE BLUFF UNDECIDED
Absent among the list of challengers is Pine Bluff, where Mayor Carl Redus said last year that he would contest the census results because the city’s population count had fallen below 50,000.
On Friday, Redus said city officials were still determining whether to challenge the city’s official population of 49,083.
“We’re exploring challenging it but ... it hasn’t impacted us in the sense that people thought it would,” he said.
When census results were first announced, Redus and other city officials worried that the lower population count would mean the loss of certain federal designations that determine eligibility for grant money and allow the city to receive specific government statistics on such things as its unemployment rate.
But federal and state officials have said that the city’s highway funding, which it receives on the basis of population, would be largely unaffected, and the city will remain eligible for many programs that include Community Development Block Grants administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Also, census numbers released last week show that the “urbanized area” of Pine Bluff had 53,495 people in 2010, a large enough population for the city to keep its Metropolitan Statistical Area designation, said Moira Mack, a spokesman for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which defines the areas nationwide.
Urbanized areas are determined on the basis of census block-population density rather than a city’s official boundaries.
On Friday, Redus said he’s still interested in knowing whether the Census Bureau erred and if it would be enough for the city to gain the 917 residents needed to crack 50,000.
“We’d rather stay above that threshold, but if things come out to be accurate and in fact we did fall below it, then some of the initiatives that we have in place - as far as job creation and the type of new businesses that we’re starting - will help,” he said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/02/2012