Hoping to reap nearly $150,000 a year in additional state funding, McHenry will pay the U.S. Census Bureau $48,500 to conduct a new count of the city’s population.
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The McHenry City Council voted 6-1 to approve the special census, which city administrator Gerald Peterson said would begin by midsummer and produce usable data by Nov. 1. City officials say that they hope the special census will show that McHenry’s population has grown by 1,721 since the 1990 census.
State revenue-sharing with the city is computed on a per-capita basis, and the city estimates that the revised population would result in an additional $39,036 a year in motor fuel taxes and $70,428 in state income tax revenues, plus $38,092 a year if the income tax surcharge for municipalities survives.
It’s also possible that the 1990 census, which found that McHenry’s population had shot up by nearly 50 percent in the previous decade, to 16,177, may have overlooked residents already there, said Mayor William Busse.
“I sincerely believe that the ’90 census numbers were undercounted,” Busse told the City Council. “I look at my own block and see outrageous undercounting.”