To carry out a constitutionally decreed program, government prefers a moment in the background.

Those forming St. Joseph's plans for a full population count in the 2010 census believe citizen-to-citizen education will produce the best results.

Not that the federal government has ceded its decennial obligation. The Census Bureau has printed 120 million questionnaires in its mandated chore of counting everyone living in the United States.

But government involvement remains part of the issue.

"We're trying to keep it as much away from government as possible," Councilman Bill Falkner said. "Government sometimes is a bad word."

Mr. Falkner serves as the City Council liaison for the St. Joseph Complete Count Committee, a group that gathered for the first time last week and got its charge to spread

information about the population tally's importance.

About that importance, the census totals become the measurements used to draw boundaries for any number of governmental districts, including the 435 seats of the U.S. House of Representatives. Further, the population numbers matter in the distribution of $400 billion in federal funds to state and local jurisdictions.

(Think school lunch programs, think Medicare grants, think community development block grants. Money determinations for all are based on census figures.)

But the numbers amount to even more than that, insisted Mike Kellam, St. Joseph city planner.

"If we drop in numbers, we obviously drop in the funding dollars, too," he said. "The big part of it is, we in St. Joe want to know we are a viable community."

A civic push in 2000 preceded a census count of 73,990, the first recorded increase in St. Joseph's population since 1980.

Nine years ago, 73 percent of Buchanan County residents responded to the census questionnaires. That compares to a 69 percent response rate statewide.

Other counties in the region showed higher returns: Andrew County, 76 percent; Nodaway County, 75 percent; DeKalb and Platte counties, 74 percent.

The response rate proves telling. While the basic form most residents get (just 17 percent get the more detailed long form) includes only 10 questions this year, many find the inquisitor a problem.

Dennis Johnson, director of the six-state regional Census Bureau office in Kansas City, said some people judge the census just another federal intrusion, while others deliberately avoid it for their own reasons.

"Our job is to make them understand that it won't hurt them," he said. "The census information can not be used in any manner other than taking the census."

Mr. Falkner also stressed the confidentiality. "It's important that everybody feels safe filling it out, that there's nothing that's going to come back on them," the councilman said.

The Census Bureau will open an office in St. Joseph, at 4906 Frederick Blvd., probably next month, Mr. Johnson said. The office will provide support for the population count in counties across northern Missouri. Some management interviews have taken place, and information about other census jobs will be forthcoming.

Nationwide, the Census Bureau will hire about 1.4 million people to conduct the count. Census Day is April 1, 2010.

City and federal officials insist their partnership aims at raising the response rate, though the community, which has the most to gain, will play the larger role.

"As a federal agency, we handle the mechanics of the census," Mr. Johnson said. "But really, the encouragement of people to fill it out accurately and to cooperate with the census process, a lot of that's generated at the local level."

Ken Newton can be reached

at kenn@npgco.com.