Bloomington officials are concerned that COVID-19 may skew the local population count during the 2020 census.
In mid-March Indiana University moved all classes online and sent students home after spring break. In the same weeks, the U.S. Census started sending invitations to households to participate.
Stephen Volan is the Bloomington City Council representative for District 6, which includes the largest portion of IU students. He says students make up half of Bloomington’s population.
“I’m afraid that this once in a decade thing is going to change the numbers permanently for every college town in America, and that's just one small thing looming on the horizon,” he says.
Volan says local government is doing its best to respond to a quickly changing situation.
He says the city has to prepare economically for the possibility of students not returning to Bloomington until as late as January 2021.
"We have to think about how that will affect housing and what's built," he says. "Despite my misgivings about the virus, anything we can do to resume some economic processes here is something I and my colleagues at city hall are assiduously considered about doing."
He says the city council is set to meet with Controller's Office and mayor in the next couple of weeks to get a picture of Bloomington's fiscal situation for 2020 and discuss priorities for the coming budget year.
"The only precedent I have for this is 2010 after the recession," Volan says. "We had expectations of budgets freezes, no growth. This will be a year like that one. We have to rethink everything we take for granted about the budget."
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