 Jeff Baylor, you are the New York Regional Director of the US Census Bureau. Welcome, we're so happy to talk with you today on Town Meeting Television in Burlington, Vermont. Well, thank you so much for having me and thank you for hosting this conversation about something that's so important to communities throughout Vermont. Well, the census we know is important and it's always a challenge to collect the data, but what are the particular challenges during this COVID pandemic? Yeah, we've certainly seen challenges and probably the biggest challenge has been the ability for our many, many partners. You know, we have Jason Broughton who's leading the Vermont Complete Count Committee, the statewide committee that's working with local partners throughout different areas. We have, you know, the city of Burlington and our partners, you know, working throughout the city, providing resources and education for their community members. And in a lot of their plans, you know, when accounting started back on March 12th, plans included the local library inviting people to come down to learn and chat about the census. And then before they leave to sit down at a computer and fill it out. We had, you know, church pastors and faith-based leaders that were going to talk about it during their worship services. And then during coffee hour, invite the census to come with our tablets so that people had a resource to fill it out right then and there. And unfortunately those things just couldn't happen as a result of COVID-19. And those were some of the challenges. Some of the good things, though, is that in 2020, every household can go online at 2020census.gov, format a first smartphone or for a tablet, fill it out. They can call one of our toll-free telephone numbers, 844-330-2020 for the English line. And if they still have that paper questionnaire, they can fill it out and mail it back in. So tell us about the overall national results. How successful are you being in having people fill out the census and what are Burlington and the surrounding areas results? Yeah, absolutely. So I can tell you nationwide we're around just under 63% self-response. And again, that's the percentage of households that have either gone online, called it in over the phone or filled it out on paper and returned it. Burlington is doing amazing. 69.7% of households in Burlington have self-responded. Across the state, 56.4% is the current self-response rate for Vermont. So this is one of the odd things we're seeing. Typically, across our region, the larger cities typically have a lower self-response rate, the more densely populated. And this is a testament to what our partners throughout Burlington are doing in getting a nearly 70% self-response rate before we start knocking on doors. That's fantastic. So what would you like to see happen in the rest of Vermont? How can we help get those numbers up across the state? Yeah, every opportunity, a trusted voice as yourself or any other partner out there, uses their voice, uses whatever communication methods they have to remind people about the census. To talk about that, it's safe to let people know that Title 13 protects every piece of data we collect. It can never be used against an individual. It can never be shared with any law enforcement agency, no local state or federal law enforcement agency, no housing authority, no ICE or Homeland Security or IRS. So it's important that people understand the data is safe. They need to know there's the different methods of filling it out, whether they go on their smartphone or on their laptop or on their tablet at 2020census.gov. They call one of the toll-free telephone numbers. We have 13, one for each language that's being supported, or if they still have that paper questionnaire to fill out and mail it back in. And probably the most important thing a partner can do is talk about the importance of the census, what it means locally to that community, to that neighborhood, whether it's the federal funding that comes in for Medicaid or Medicare or food stamps or TANF or WIC, whether it's the funding that comes in to improve infrastructure, the roads, bridges and tunnels, education for our kids, whether it's national school lunch and breakfast program, whether it's Title I grants for supplies, whether it's Head Start or Pell grants. All are based upon formulas that use census data. And right now when we see the strain nationwide locally on our healthcare systems, it's a great opportunity to remind them that filling out your set 2020census is an easy way to support your local healthcare community, your healthcare professionals to ensure they have the supplies that they need to ensure there's enough hospital beds in a community or ambulances or emergency personnel to help. And it's just a very easy way to let, you know, stand out for your community because what you do today will last for the next 10 years. Are there still going to be people knocking on doors or are you dispensed with that? No, there will still be. It's largest operation we conduct. We know there's a need to knock on doors in some communities. We do plan on doing that. The official start date is August 11th. And it's important to note that the people that we hire to do this are your neighbors. We try to hire people to work in their own community that speak the languages that understand the culture. And it's going to be safe. Every employee who works for the Census Bureau, when they're in public, they must wear a mask. Regardless of what the local requirements are, we require them to wear a mask. Part of their training includes how to socially distance, to knock on the door and back up six feet before you start the conversation. You know, not to share the device, we're collecting information on a smartphone, not to hand it to the respondent just to have that conversation. So this is a really important piece of the operation that we do during a census. We call it a non-response follow-up operation. Over a thousand enumerators we're going to have in the state of Vermont knocking on doors in the next couple of weeks. And if you're a household that has yet to fill out your census, if you go online today at 2020Census.gov, call one of our toll-free telephone numbers, or fill out that paper questionnaire if you still have it. We don't have a need to come and knock on your door. And are you still looking for census workers? We are. You know, COVID-19 certainly has changed the minds of people who may have applied for these positions eight months ago. So we continue to allow or we continue to accept applications. If people are interested in applying for job, we ask first that they fill out their census at 2020Census.gov. So then you can go online to 2020Census.gov forward slash jobs, fill out an application. We will be hiring over the next couple of weeks. We'll see what kind of our turnover rate is as we start knocking on doors. And basically we want every device that we have in the hands of a Vermont, or that wants to go out there and support their community by collecting this vitally important information. Well, Jeff Baylor, I really appreciate your time. I know you're busy. You're doing interviews all over the region today. And this is important work. It's certainly not easy. It's very surgical in the kind of detail that you must undertake in order to get every household. What is, just to close, what is the anticipated rate? I mean, I imagine we all want 100%, but, you know, typically how many Americans fill out the census? Yeah, so we will get to 100%. When we project rates, we try to project the self-response rate. And, you know, years ago, before we even knew what COVID-19 was, we projected that we would be at nationally 60.5% self-response rate. And we've already surpassed it. So that's fantastic, especially given the challenges due to COVID-19. So we're looking forward to continually to get households to self-respond. Sometimes knocking on the door is the best way to motivate a household to respond. We'll leave a little notice of visit if no one answers, letting them know, hey, the Census Bureau stopped by. We'll be back in a few days. But if you want, you can go online and fill it out today and eliminate the need for us to come back. So I want to thank you for being a trusted voice, for being one of those partners that's sharing how important the census is. And we're looking to get Vermont counted 100%. Well, thank you so much, Jeff Baylor, New York District Manager, Regional Manager for the U.S. Census. We appreciate your time today. Have a great day. Thank you so much, Lauren.