Daily Herald opinion: Special census a wise move by two suburban towns

Cities and villages need to have population numbers that are up to date because the amount of state funding they receive is determined by how many residents they have.

So it should come as little surprise that two suburban towns are among 11 small communities in Illinois and Iowa that want their population counted again — four years after the last census.

Officials in Warrenville and Pingree Grove say their populations have only continued to grow since the 2020 census. As a result, they are losing out on additional state funding for roads and other expenses by not having new residents included in their population totals.

“We’ve been the fastest-growing city in Illinois since 2010,” Pingree Grove Village President Amber Kubiak told our Susan Sarkauskas last week.

Pingree Grove and Warrenville have signed agreements with the U.S. Census Bureau for a second count of their residents in 2024. And while the federal government paid for the 2020 national head count, municipalities must foot the bill for their special censuses.

Pingree Grove will pay an estimated $373,333 for its special census to get an updated population count. Warrenville will pay $427,424.

Some might think that spending that much on a population recount is pricey. But Warrenville and Pingree Grove officials anticipate it will be a wise investment.

Pingree Grove doubled its population from roughly 4,500 residents in 2010 to a little more than 10,300 in 2020. Kubiak told Sarkauskas that she expects the special census will show that another 2,000 to 3,000 people have moved into the village since the 2020 census. If that increase is confirmed, the town will receive an additional $1 million or so in population-based revenue from the state over the next several years, officials estimate.

Meanwhile, Warrenville officials believe they can get an extra $1.2 million annually in federal and state funding, based on the calculation that they have added almost 1,000 new residents since the 2020 census. During that count, the suburb had more than 13,500 residents.

“We realized that there was an opportunity to capture some additional revenue that would not be available to us until the next census was taken,” Warrenville Mayor David Brummel said.

Brummel is absolutely correct when he points out that not doing a special census would be “a missed opportunity.”

It’s our dollars going to Springfield through the state income tax. So it only makes sense that officials in our cities and villages work to ensure that as much of that money comes back to benefit our local communities.

According to Warrenville, the process for its special census will begin at the end of April and take several months to complete. We look forward to it and Pingree Grove getting rewarded when the extra revenue starts rolling in.