Friday is the deadline to return 2010 Census forms by mail and avoid a house call from federal head-counters, and officials in Alaska are using the final days to make a last-minute push to keep the state from claiming a dubious honor.
As of Wednesday, Alaska had the worst participation rate in the country, with only 57 percent of households returning their forms.
Conducted every 10 years, the nationwide population count is used to spread money for schools, roads and other projects as well as re-draw political boundaries. While the Anchorage-area participation rate is one of the highest in the state -- approaching the national average of 67 percent -- pockets of the city lag far behind.
In hopes of goosing those numbers, Census workers this week are hanging fliers from doorknobs in city neighborhoods with low compliance, including Mountain View, Merrill Field-Fairview and Boniface north of DeBarr Road, said Gloria Yates, a Census specialist in Alaska. Meantime, the Anchorage School District is using the automated phone call system it relies on to alert parents about picture day or PTA meetings to prod nearly 8,000 households in areas where families aren't returning the form.
Census officials said they've seen no sign of political boycotts in Alaska and mused that the low response rate could arise from any number of reasons, from mail delays to simple procrastination. The state ranked last in participation during the 2000 Census too.
"Is it politics? ... Is it too intrusive? Is it fear? Is it they don't feel that they have to do it?" Yates asked.
Some of the state's lowest mail participation rates are in rural boroughs where Census workers have gone door-to-door dropping off forms in hub cities such as Nome and Barrow.
In the North Slope Borough, fewer than one in three households had mailed back their forms as of Wednesday, according to the Census Web site.
Don Kashevaroff, chief executive of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, says the numbers worry him.
The non-profit jointly owns and manages the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. Federal money pays for trips to the emergency room, dental care, health aides in villages and virtually everything the tribal health consortium does, Kashevaroff said.
That money is tied directly to Census population counts that allow the Indian Health Service to justify funding requests to Congress, he said. "Having folks fill out the Census form and check off that they're Alaska Native, or American Indian, as the case may be, helps bring more money into the system."
All told, every Alaskan counted in the Census represents more than $2,000 in federal spending here each year over the next 10 years, said Ruben Del Valle, a spokesman for the Census Bureau in Alaska.
Among other poorly performing states are New Mexico with a 58 percent mail participation rate and Louisiana at 59 percent. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa lead the way, each with 75 percent or more of households already mailing back their forms.
In some ways, Alaska had a head start.
An Inupiat Eskimo village, Noorvik, was the first community counted in the 2010 Census, with a visit from Census Director Robert Groves in late January. But the state's low participation rate does not include on-the-ground counting efforts in remote villages where Census takers visit each household rather than mail or drop off forms.
As of Wednesday, 217 such villages have already been counted across the state, Del Valle said. Officials are counting another 12 this week in places such as the Aleutian Chain and Yukon River, with Census takers expected to visit four final locations by the end of the month.
Meantime, the bureau is preparing for door-to-door visits beginning in May to count people across Alaska who didn't return their forms or were unable to receive the form by mail.
To complete the job, training begins the last week of April for 1,300 or more Census workers, said Charmaine Ramos, assistant manager for recruiting. Not everyone who is trained will be put to work -- the number of jobs depends on the number of people who don't return the form -- but Alaska Census-taker pay starts at $25 an hour, she said.
This year's form is 10 questions long and asks how many people live in your house, whether your own your home, your race, age and other details.
Gone is the so-called "long form" that went to one in six households in earlier Census efforts and asked about people's schooling, their wages and families. Instead, the Census Bureau asks a series of detailed questions in the American Community Survey, a questionnaire sent to 250,000 random households each month instead of once every 10 years.
People who don't mail the form by Friday -- or have a Post Office box and were unable to receive it in the first place -- will get a visit at their home by Census takers, who may return multiple times between May and July until the household is counted, Yates said.
If you refuse to participate, Census workers may ask your neighbor about you instead, she said.
By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com