Everyone pays state and federal taxes and then those dollars are often divided up based on the population of an area. For that reason, getting an accurate count of the population in North Augusta is critical.

A Complete Count Committee has been formed and is now mobilized to encourage everyone in the area to fill out the census form when it arrives in the mail this month.

Skip Grkovic, director of North Augusta's Planning and Economic Development Department, explained that the response has historically been pretty good in North Augusta when it came time to be counted. However, he said where a "complete count" is often eluded is with regard to low-income minorities, homeless, noncitizens (mostly illegal aliens as compared to those with green cards). Those are the people the Complete Count Committee is particularly trying to reach in the 2010 census.

The local committee consists of Timothy Key, chair; Nancy Gage, publicity; Peter Cervantes, Brian Tucker and Phyllis Britt -- along with coordinators with the city, who include Grkovic, Chris DeCamp and Mendy DeMine.

The group is reaching out to radio, television and newspapers, as well as including reminders on the City of North Augusta website and on a street banner across Georgia Avenue, which will be up most of the month of March.

The census forms are expected to arrive in the mail by mid-March, and residents are asked to fill them out and return them by April 1. Following that deadline, a host of workers has been employed by the federal government to go door-to-door to those addresses that did not return the form.

During a meeting of the committee last week, the discussion turned to other agencies that may reach some of the people who often get left out of the count.

Key agreed to reach out to local churches to see if they will display some of the census materials to remind their members to fill out the forms that will come to their homes. And he said he would talk to the Aiken County schools' Area 2 Assistant Superintendent Rosie Berry to see if materials can be displayed in the local schools or sent home with students.

Gage suggested placing a reminder in the newsletter at her bank -- SRP Federal Credit Union. "That goes to 9,000 members," she pointed out.

Posters are going up in any local business willing to display them. Committee members also discussed bringing posters and information to the next Chamber of Commerce breakfast, in an attempt to reach employers who will in turn encourage their employees to respond to the census.

The committee will be set up at the Yellow Jessamine Festival, planned for March 27, in order to answer questions about the census and to offer materials -- including free items such as pencils and coloring books.

The census form asks 10 questions which include name, sex and age of each person in the household, relationship of each to the other, ethnicity, type of dwelling, telephone number and whether any persons in the household sometimes live elsewhere (college, military, jail, nursing home, etc.).