Governor to unveil census promotion

Plan coming after complaints from Democratic officials

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration will unveil plans Tuesday for how to spend $900,000 for promoting next year’s U.S. census.

The plans come as Democratic lawmakers have been pushing the Republican governor to come up with a plan for the money.

U.S. Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Chris Van Hollen sent a letter to Hogan on Thursday asking for a plan.

Members of the state’s Complete Count Committee “can do little to plan critical outreach efforts without more information about intentions for these funds,” Cardin and Van Hollen wrote.

Cardin and Van Hollen, both Democrats, said towns and counties that missed out on $4.1 million worth of earlier grants — including “historically undercounted jurisdictions” — could use the money to bolster their census outreach efforts.

“The 2020 Census is rapidly approaching, and it is critical that the State develop and implement a robust plan to count every Marylander,” the senators wrote.

Democratic state lawmakers already have leaned on the Hogan administration to develop a plan for the $900,000.

State Planning Secretary Rob McCord will outline the plans for how to distribute the money at the committee’s next meeting Tuesday in Westminster. His office said Thursday that the money will be available to jurisdictions that did not receive the earlier grants.

The census will be conducted in April with the goal of counting every person living in the country. Census data is used to determine how much money the federal government spends in different communities and how many seats each state gets in Congress.