In the coming weeks households should begin receiving mail from the United States Census Bureau.

The every-10-year census will be seeking a national head count on April 1.

The first census mailings are scheduled March 12-20.

Those invitations will give citizens the option of filling out the questionnaire online as well as by phone or the traditional paper form.

Local officials are gearing up to help make sure as many residents as possible will be counted.

Census figures impact numerous programs that can benefit residents, and once those numbers are set, they remain in place for 10 years.

As Mineola Mayor Kevin White noted, the census does not mean more money for local government. It means more money for citizens.

One reason officials are working to improve the response to the census is that Wood County was estimated to be undercounted as much as 20 percent in the last census.

They are planning a variety of outreach efforts, including making computers available to the public for citizens who might need such access to complete the questionnaire.

They are also partnering with census officials to encourage citizens interested in the census to sign up as volunteers in these efforts.

For example, Mineola schools are planning to offer sessions where citizens can use school laptops for completing the questionnaire. Volunteers could assist during those events.

The census bureau will continue contacting residents who have not responded, with reminder letters and postcards.

If all those communications fail, residents can expect an in-person visit from a census taker.

White stressed that answers to census questions are completely secure. The information cannot be shared with any other agency or used for enforcement actions.

For example, he said, a person living in a rental property might have a limit on the number of persons residing there and might not list all the residents.

But filling out the census accurately would not trigger any enforcement action against the tenant.

Mineola City Secretary Cindy Karch said that rental properties are one of the areas that typically have undercounts. Another is children younger than five.

“I’ve spoken with city leaders in most of the cities in our county about the need for public outreach and education efforts to encourage everyone to be counted,” said County Judge Lucy Hebron. “From a county standpoint, we hope that the volunteer outreach efforts that are planned will encourage and enable everyone to participate, whether that is by going to your local library or school to have internet access to complete the process, or by filling out the forms manually and mailing them in.”

Among the key areas that census numbers can impact, at the local level, the Wood County commissioner precincts must be balanced by population. Generally precinct lines are redrawn following each census.

Among the federal programs that assist local residents that are impacted by census figures are Title One grants to schools, the Head Start and Early Head Start early childhood education programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

Mayor Randy Dunn of Quitman and White stressed that when cities are applying for grants for things like street and utility improvements, census results can impact the cities’ chances for being successful.

Another area of significant impact for Texas and Wood County is the projection that the state will gain three seats in Congress based on the increased population since 2010.

Wood County is a part of two Congressional districts, one of which goes into the east side of Dallas.

As Dunn explained, East Texas communities would rather be represented in Congress by someone from East Texas.

“The census numbers determine how many people will represent us in government for the next 10 years,” Hebron said. “Also important for our county and our cities is that the number of people in 2020 and whatever that population number is will determine how federal programs allocate funding for our area for over 50 different federal programs from highway funding and projects, affordable housing loans/projects, federal student loans, state children’s health insurance and other social services. Census representatives have indicated to me that for every person that is not counted in our county means a loss in funding of between $1,000-$2,000 per person.”