Census undercount slashed in Clark County

Wednesday, May 2, 2001 | 10:16 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- In the last decade the state of Nevada lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding because the 1990 Census undercounted the growing population.

It was a lesson well learned, apparently, as extra efforts during the 2000 census reduced the undercount significantly, a Democratic based report released Tuesday concluded.

The report, overall, stated that Americans living in urban areas tended to be overlooked more often in the 2000 Census than people in other parts of the country.

Selected urban areas in 10 states were studied in preparing the report. Cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit and Baltimore each had net undercount rates higher than the rest of their respective states.

The exceptions in the report were for the state of Nevada and for Clark County. Clark County had a 1.6 percent undercount and the rest of Nevada had a 2.1 percent undercount, according to the estimate prepared by Census Monitoring Board consultant Eugene Ericksen, a Temple University statistics professor.

The numbers, if correct, represent an improvement over the 1990 Census undercount for Nevada and Clark County, which both had a 2.3 percent undercount, according to the Census Bureau.

The undercount is important because the population numbers play an important role in determining federal funding needs for a state. State and federal officials estimated last year that Nevada lost hundreds of millions in federal funding over the last decade because of the 1990 undercount.

Members of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board appointed by former President Clinton released the study, which was not endorsed by the Census Bureau, and was strongly criticized by board members appointed by the Republican-controlled Congress.

The bureau has said there was a net national undercount of 1.2 percent of the country's 281 million people in 2000, or about 3.2 million. That was lower than the 1.6 percent undercount in 1990, or about 4 million then.

Bureau officials said more analysis must be done before they can determine whether undercount estimates on the state and local level are accurate enough to be made public -- if at all.

Democrats and civil rights groups want the Bush administration to release a second set of figures -- adjusted using statistical sampling -- that they contend would make up for groups that are typically missed: minorities, the poor and children.

"We released this data in the interest of transparency and scientific discussion and hope that its use will help lead to greater accuracy in the census," said Gilbert Casellas, co-chairman for the Democratic members.

The administration cited the declining national undercount as a sign that the 2000 head count was "the most accurate in history." Republicans also contend adjustment would insert more errors into the census.

Wick Caldwell, executive director of the board's GOP members, said their own undercount estimates match what the Census Bureau has come up with, unlike the Democratic numbers.

But "the Census Bureau has clearly said that they are not comfortable with any of the numbers and will not release it ... we feel we should not release them either," Caldwell said.

Jeff Hardcastle, Nevada state demographer, said he would wait until the storm of competing undercount estimates subsides before venturing an opinion on the undercount.

He said much of the debate over the undercount is moving "more and more into a partisan realm."

Some cities in Clark County are very concerned that thousands of residents might have been missed by the Census Bureau last year. Both Mesquite and Henderson city governments said the bureau's enumerators missed new neighborhoods.

If the bureau finds that people have been missed in large numbers, the agency can adjust the numbers in the months and years to come. That can affect federal funding formulas, but not questions of political representation, which already have been decided: politicians in Carson City used the original numbers released in March to carve out a new congressional district and draw lines for Assembly, Senate and state School Board districts.

Sun reporter Launce Rake contributed to this story. He can be reached at 259-4127.