BETTER CENSUS WOULDN'T HAVE HELPED REGION

Missouri would have lost federal funding if the 1990 census figures had been adjusted for a more accurate population count, the federal General Accounting Office says.

That's the conclusion of a GAO report released last year that looked at the census undercount and its impact on federal funding for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The report is at odds with the Missouri Census 2000 Complete Count Committee, chaired by Secretary of State Bekki Cook. The committee has encouraged Missourians to fill out the 2000 census forms by arguing that an undercount would cost the state federal funding.

The Census Bureau's estimated that nearly 32,000 Missourians were missed in the 1990 census. The state's Complete Count Committee said that resulted in a loss of more than $20 million a year in federal funding over the past decade.

But the GAO study of 15 grant programs found that 23 states, including Missouri and Illinois, would have received less federal money in fiscal 1998 using adjusted population counts while 27 states and the District of Columbia would have received more money.

Missouri would have received $2.84 billion, nearly $27 million less than it actually received. Illinois would have received $5.36 billion or about $2.9 million less funding, the study found.

The 15 programs represented nearly 80 percent of the population-based grant funding for states and local governments, the GAO said.

According to the study, $449 million would have been reallocated as a result of the undercount of 4 million people nationwide.

The 1990 census undercounted all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But the adjusted populations calculated later by the Census Bureau wouldn't have helped states like Missouri and Illinois, the GAO said.

"Whatever somebody gains, somebody else has to lose," said Jerry Fastrup, an assistant director of the GAO.

Using the revised counts, the states with undercounts exceeding the national average would get more money and the states with undercounts below that figure would get less, Fastrup said.

The GAO estimated that about $390 million in fiscal 1998 alone would have been reallocated from states with undercounts below the national average. The federal government would have contributed about $60 million more in funding, the GAO said.

Nationwide, the 1990 census was off by about 1.6 percent. Missouri's count was low by about .62 percent and Illinois by nearly 1 percent.

California was the big winner, the GAO said. California accounted for about 20 percent of the adjusted population and would have received nearly half of the money that would have been reallocated or nearly $223 million.

The four states that border Mexico California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas accounted for over a third of the adjusted population and would have received nearly 75 percent of the reallocated total or $336 million, the GAO said.

The largest dollar reduction would have been in Pennsylvania, which would have lost $110 million in one year alone.

Medicaid payments accounted for 90 percent of all the funds that would have been reallocated.

The adjusted figures would have resulted in $384 million being reallocated from states in the Northeast and Midwest to states in the South and West, the GAO said.

Ryan Burson, state demographer in Missouri's office of administration, came up with the estimate of lost federal funding used by the state's Complete Count Committee.

Burson defended his calculation that the census undercount cost the state more than $20 million a year in federal funding during the 1990s.

Burson said the GAO study is flawed because it didn't cover all the federal grants flowing to Missouri, particularly the grants allocated directly to communities.

"To me, it is nothing more than an academic exercise and probably not a very robust one at all," said Burson.

He said higher census numbers would have generated more federal dollars and insisted the state count committee isn't playing games with the numbers.

John Mehner, Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce president, serves on a local committee that is encouraging area residents to fill out the census forms.

Mehner said the local committee hasn't used the state committee's $20 million figure in promoting census participation. "We have never claimed a dollar amount because we weren't counted," he said.

The local committee, he said, has said that the census is important for distribution of federal funds as well as reapportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and state and federal legislative redistricting.

Fastrup said the GAO numbers clearly show that states with the highest concentrations of "poor folks" and immigrants are most likely to have significant undercounts.

Any undercount in Missouri for the 2000 census likely would be below the national average, Fastrup said.