With Census 2010 rapidly approaching, the process of verifying municipal boundaries after an annexation becomes even more important to ensuring an accurate count of residents. In addition to a city’s routine notification of annexations to the organizations, the Census Bureau will be contacting cities annually to update boundary changes.
Currently a city must notify four governmental agencies when changing a municipal boundary (see below). The notification for the preclearance of an annexation according to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 must be submitted to the US Department of Justice immediately following the final reading of the proposed annexation ordinance.
South Carolina law mandates a city must also file a notice of the annexation with the Secretary of State, Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety describing its new boundaries. The notice must include a written description of the boundary and a map that clearly defines the new territory. Also notifying any entity that provides services to the municipality is a good practice, although not required (see suggested checklist).
Beginning in 2008, the Census Bureau annually sends all municipalities a survey asking them to identify any annexations during the past year. This survey will be sent to the Boundary and Annexation Survey contact that the Census Bureau has on file. If there is no BAS contact, the letter goes to the highest elected official. Cities that indicate they did have an annexation in the past year will receive a BAS package. If the city had no annexations, it will not receive anything further.
In the BAS package, cities will update all of the annexations passed that year. While this process will next take place in November of 2009, the BAS contact is to enter the boundaries as they will be on January 1, 2010. This is the last update before tabulation begins for Census 2010.
In the summer of 2010, the Census Bureau will mail a map to the highest elected official for each municipality. That official is to verify the boundaries of the municipality and notify the Census Bureau. This Boundary Verification program will allow the Census Bureau to double check that the boundary it has on file is correct before the data tabulation begins for the municipality. This is an especially critical process this year since it is the base for which the population of each city will be counted in the Census 2010.