Westfield begins special census

WESTFIELD, Ind. — One Hamilton County city is getting a headcount of all its residents.

Westfield is conducting a special census to take advantage of potential funding from the state.

The city could wait until 2030 to complete the census, but Mayor Scott Willis believes it should be done now because there’s quite a bit of funding they’d be missing out on.

“It’s about $6-8 million of tax revenue to the city, that’s the harm,” Willis said.

They’re conducting a special census to make sure everyone is counted.

In 2020, the population of Westfield was only around 50,000 people.

With the community expanding as fast as it is, they estimate it’s now closer to 65,000.

The mayor said they want to take advantage of all the funding they can to meet the needs of the growing community.

“We’ve got this gap that we could be using for roads and infrastructure and amenities to our residents, that’s really important for our city, but the state’s holding on to that based on our census data,” Willis said.

The city also wants to compete with its neighbors for business.

Westfield is currently maxed out on liquor licenses until their census data is updated.

“Everybody wants more restaurants, more places to eat and visit,” Willis said, “It’s hard to get a restaurant to come into town when they can’t get a liquor license.”

Beginning mid-August, residents will start receiving several notices to fill out the census questionnaire.

“If you do that, you’re gonna save yourself a lot of work down the road, people probably aren’t gonna show up at your door, knocking on the door saying, hey, we’d like to do a census of your household,” Willis said.

Field representatives will begin going door to door in September to follow up on people who haven’t completed the questionnaire.

Newer neighborhoods and multi-family units might not get them and field representatives will be out to those addresses as well.

The city added that they are hiring field clerks, supervisors, and representatives to help complete the census.

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