Please hold the appreciation

Getting packages around a newspaper office isn’t that unusual, especially when you mix in the recent election.

So us editorial types don’t think much of the Fed Ex truck stopping at the office – we just go on about our work.

But this time the package was for the editorial department – another package from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It seems they, the Census Bureau from the Atlanta bureau needed to thank us for encouraging you to actually response to this year questionnaires. And thank us they did. Not only did they send us a nice thank you letter, they send us a pretty 8x10 plaque suitable for display in our office.

Over kill – when we remind our readers to send in their responses to the Census bureau, give blood and vote we’re doing our job. Because we do our job we get a paycheck every two weeks whether we need it or not.

Being only human, we do appreciate a note of thanks from time to time from our readers but it isn’t necessary.

Neither was it necessary to Fed Ex the package to us. The U.S. Postal Service would have been fine. You would think a federal agency would use another federal agency, although quasi, to deliver the goods. The struggling postal agency could have used a boost in revenue, maybe that would save our Saturday mail delivery service.

Let’s look at some figures. In the year 2000 the mail back response rate was 72 percent. It wasn’t any different in the year 2010 at the national level – still 72 percent answered the mailed-out questions.

In Marion County our mail back rate was 75 percent which was 13 percent more than the year 2000.

Even wasting money by Fed Exing us our appreciation plaque and the cost of the plaque, the Census Bureau still returned $1.6 billion, yes a cool billion, to the coffers. At least that’s the plan as of Aug. 12, according to press release found on the Census’ bureau website.

Some of that saving was based on the lack of acts of God. In case of some sort of natural disaster during the throes of collecting the data, the agency had earmarked $800 million as a contingency fund.

Other savings, $650 million, were realized because so many households were kind enough to return their questionnaire by mail. Those returned by mail saved the 565,000 census workers employed for the cause from knocking on a bunch of extra doors.

In addition those temporary employers were more effective in getting the job done than in past decades. Did I just hear a sign of relief escape your lips?

Don’t breathe easy the job still isn’t completed until all the reports are compiled.

As required by law the census bureau must report the nation’s population and the apportionments of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives by the end of the year.

Those reports are bound to bring more column fodder.