Good afternoon. The Leon County Commission appointed our Census 2000 Complete Count Committee in February of this year. We kicked off our first meeting in April, with a big press conference that was attended by 19 of our 21 committee members, as well as several dignitaries Census Bureau organization. Prior to our press conference, we held an organizational meeting, in which Pat Underwood, Census Bureau Government Partnership Specialist for our region, gave committee members an excellent orientation on what we should be working toward in preparation for Census 2000.

In our selection of committee members, our main objective was to identify key individuals and organizations who would be able to appeal to a large segment of our community in our effort to make sure that our census count in the Tallahassee/Leon County area is as accurate as possible. I have available a list of our committee members, which shows the cross-section of our population which we want to make sure we don’t leave out.

The driving force for me as Chairman of the Leon County Commission in making sure we are prepared for Census 2000 was money. Money for our community, and being able to note deficiencies in our community that may be identified during the census count and being able to work toward correcting them with dollars allocated as a result of census information.

Communities receive an average of $1,500 per person, for special needs identified during the census count. During the last census count in 1990, over 4,100 individuals in Leon County were left out of the count. Depending on needs that may have been identified for this number of people, this quite possibly means that Leon County could have missed out on over $6 million in federal dollars to help with infrastructure improvements and various human services programs for our community. I personally do not want to see us as a community miss out on the possibility of bringing that type of money into our growing community again.

One way that we plan to improve on our count in the year 2000 is to educate our citizens on the importance and benefits of being included in the census count. Our committee will all be given opportunities as a whole, as well as individually to promote Census 2000 and educate our community on what their participation in the census count means to our community.

We had a very enthusiastic second meeting just a couple of weeks ago, during which we appointed officers, assigned responsibilities, and discussed future meeting plans. We have a tremendous group as far as knowledge and interest in the census is concerned, and I anticipate that we will make a great amount of progress in time for the year 2000.

One key decision that was also made at the Complete Count Committee’s last meeting was that the City and County Commissioners represented on the committee would appeal to our respective governments for funding support. The purpose of the funding will be to assist with media coverage (especially localizing the media materials) and assisting with operations of the committee). Most meetings will be lunch meetings, and we anticipate that some of the funds raised will be done so to subsidize refreshments and other materials that will be needed.

Our committee will be meeting on a monthly basis for a the next few months in our effort to keep the enthusiasm going and to get some of our ideas off the ground and to keep the community aware of our presence.

As I indicated earlier, our main objective is the most accurate count possible to ensure that statistics identified during the count match the needs of those in our community, so that we will be the recipients of the federal and state funding we deserve to improve our County.

I would encourage every county to take an aggressive approach to preparing for Census 2000 so that the state of Florida does not go undercounted and, therefore, under funded.