NEWS

Augusta Census effort lacking workers

Susan McCord
smccord@augustachronicle.com
In this Aug. 13 photo a worker gets ready to pass out instructions on how fill out the 2020 census during a town hall meeting in Lithonia, Ga. [AP Photo/John Amis]

The 2020 Census needs 599 more applicants for jobs to ensure an accurate population count in Richmond County, members of Augusta’s Complete Count committee learned at a first meeting Wednesday.

With a goal of 1,869 applicants, the Census has received only 1,270 applications and hired 21 of around 500 needed for jobs as listers and field supervisors, according to a committee handout. The positions pay from $18.50 to $20.50 an hour.

“We are not progressing at a rate that will ensure success,” the handout said.

Nationwide the census effort has faced a shortfall of workers. Getting an accurate count determines how much federal funding flows to the area, including to public schools, and could trigger a redrawing of the state’s political lines.

The committee named Augusta University Athletic Director Clint Bryant and South State Bank Executive Vice President Robert Osborne as co-chairs, replacing Mayor Hardie Davis’ Chief of Staff Marcus Campbell, who has overseen the local effort so far. Davis’ office created the committee after Gov. Brian Kemp named him to the state’s complete count committee.

Others serving on the committee of around 30, several of whom were selected by Augusta commissioners, included WFXG Meteorologist Jay Jefferies, Augusta University Community Affairs Director Cedric Johnson, attorney Matthew Duncan and retired Augusta firefighter Charlie Coleman.

Also in attendance were representatives of Fair Count, the nonprofit founded by former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams last year to ensure hard-to-count populations are tallied. The group’s focus is on minorities, non-English speakers, renters and others less likely to respond to the census.

The committee met with Census Bureau staffers and learned about the areas of the city with a low response rate in the 2010 census.

Less than half of those surveyed responded across much of the city, including downtown and East Augusta south to Mike Padgett Highway as well as areas off Tobacco Road and near the gates of Fort Gordon.

Coleman said the need for workers was one of the bigger takeaways from the meeting, which he said was “kind of late getting started” on the census effort. Similar efforts around the nation got underway in mid-2019.

The Census jobs require a background check and the ability to work 20 hours per week, often during hours outside an employee’s regular full-time job, such as nights and weekends, he said. Applicants must be 18 years old.

The local census effort “seems very well organized,” said Duncan, who joined the committee after learning about it last week in a social media post from Mayor Pro Tem Sean Frantom.

The group was encouraged to “shout from the rooftops” about the upcoming census, he said.

While the census officially launches next week in Alaska, its key period is April 1-30, which in Augusta is complicated by the annual Masters Tournament, he said.

With the 2020 Census including for a first time specific questions about whether couples are same-sex or opposite sex, Duncan said he “wants to be sure the LGBT community is represented” and its couples are not reluctant to “identify themselves as a household.”

The committee is expected to meet each Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. and will make an announcement Jan. 28 followed by a public call to participate, including TV-news spots, next month, he said.

While several who attended the meeting referred questions to Campbell, he said he wanted to “defer this conversation at this time.”

The 2020 Census needs 599 more people to apply for jobs as listers and field supervisors to ensure a complete count in Richmond County. The jobs pay between $18.50 and $20.50 per hour.

To apply, visit 2020Census.gov/jobs.

How to apply to work for the 2020 Census