Just how

many

people

live in

New Ulm?

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The U.S. Census Bureau's efforts to prove how accurate the 2000 Census was certainly caught the attention of New Ulm city officials.

After all, in proclaiming its initial accuracy, the bureau was claiming that New Ulm's 2000 Census total of 12,248 had only dropped .6 percent to 12,179.

That appeared to be no big deal, all right. Except that the bureau in its "official" April 1, 2000 listings had New Ulm pegged at having 13,594 good and hardy souls of all ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds.

So what happened to those other 1,246 seemingly good and hardy souls that the bureau now was saying apparently never existed, asked City Manager Brian Gramentz.

Good question.

Not to worry, says Matthew Milbrodt, information services specialist at the U.S. Census Bureau's regional office in Kansas City. However, he doesn't have an explanation of how the figure listed for New Ulm -- which is supposed to its April 1, 2000 population -- got into its error-correction process.

"The April 1, 2000 figure is the official figure and wouldn't change unless the city had contested the total listed for it by the bureau (which it didn't)," he explained.

So, even though a lower total is listed in the bureau's error-correction process list, any distribution of funds based on population will be done on the basis of the April 1, 2000 total, Milbrodt said.

Because this was billed as an "error-correction process," would it be fair to say that New Ulm's 13,594 total should be reduced by 69?

"I don't know that I would do that because that's (the error-correction process) based on a sample, and they projected how it would affect a whole area. I wouldn't get caught up in that at all."

Hearing that the April 1, 2000 figure is still New Ulm's official population doesn't give Gramentz much comfort.

"It's still a concern," he said. "Who knows if two years down the road, a legislator doesn't refer to the new figure and say, 'Your population has dropped so you don't need as much money."