As North Dakota prepares for the 2020 U.S. Census, Census Office Manager Kevin Iverson from the Department of Commerce said the state is already beginning to assemble a task force.

"We've interviewed a couple people in this last week about taking the lead reins of the state committee," Iverson said. "We're not quite there yet in identifying state leadership on that. Hopefully that'll be done very soon, and as soon that's done I would assume the governor's going to sign a proclamation for Census 2020."

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The U.S. Census, data for which is collected every 10 years, is important for state and local governments receiving federal aid. For every missed resident, data from George Washington University in 2015 show a state can lose $19,100 over a 10-year span. For a household featuring the average 2.32 occupants, a state can lose $44,312. If a state is off by 0.1 percent, the data reported that could mean a $15 million loss.

"The Challenge of Census 2020 is not just to count the population, but to count every single individual," Iverson said. "I argue it's much greater than that. You just can't leave anybody behind on this."

In 2015, George Washington University reported North Dakota received federal obligations for $883.6 million in Medicaid and Medicare Part B, $237.1 million for highway planning and construction, $107.8 million for supplemental nutrition programs like the national school lunch program, $98.2 million for education grants, $69.6 million for Housing and Energy Assistance, $39.9 million for housing assistance and $9.1 million for health center programs.

As the state assembles a working group of census officials, Iverson said his department has also begun to prepare for the technical aspects of a census count, like reviewing the categories workers place people in, where to find people and other functional aspects.

The state is also beginning to launch a more direct marketing effort toward populations in the state that are harder to track.

Iverson listed seven types people: the American Indian population, people with a secondary residence out of state, military personnel with a legal residence elsewhere, college students with a legal residence elsewhere, alien residents, recently arrived immigrants and rural families.

"Think in terms of individuals that are legal residents elsewhere but live in Grand Forks, like those college students from Minnesota that are attending school at UND," Iverson said. "For census purposes, they're residents of North Dakota, so we want to make sure they're counted in North Dakota."

"(It's) because the fact you're spending a majority of your time (there)," Iverson added. "You're using the services in that particular area, you're driving on the roads, and so on. All the services that are being used are being used by you in that area. And when you leave, chances are someone (else) will come into that area."

Iverson said the state is looking forward to seeing some data on its recent population growth.

July 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that North Dakota's population has grown 13 percent since 2010.

There are only four other states that the Bureau estimated were growing by a higher percentage than North Dakota since 2010.

"I would say that the biggest thing is the change," Iverson said. "For so long we were an out-migration state, people left this area. So we have a lot of new people."