Williamson County and the US Census Bureau's PSAP
Williamson County is participated, through CAPCOG, in the US Census Bureau’s Participant Statistical Area Program (PSAP). As part of this program, the County had 120 days (Dec 1, 2008 – March 30, 2009) to update Census tracts, block groups, and Census Designated Places. These areas were updated on the Census Bureau’s maps and were edited to reflect the current population and housing units in Williamson County. These updates are the area boundaries for demographics for the next 10 years.
Because of the importance of, and many uses for, demographic information, including the distribution of ever-tight Federal dollars (Community Development Block Grants, etc), County staff did not want to undertake the re-drawing of tracts and block groups on the map without consulting City and other County stakeholders.
The County made data and resources available for the three weeks immediately following the coordinaton meeting on January 8, 2009 to allow interested participants to update data themselves, if desired. Entities were interested in updating the data had two options: update the data on a County PC in the GIS office; or using paper or GIS software to re-draw the tracts and block groups. After three weeks, all edits were returned to the County, as the timeline below indicates.
This was a process open to all interested government entities, but the County was the submitting agency to CAPCOG and will made the final determination on edits. If an agency did not wish to participate, Williamson County will made the changes needed for that area.
Williamson County Census PSAP Update Timeline
Dec 1, 2008 – 120 days begins
Dec 4 – CAPCOG training and meeting for County participants
Dec 16 –Commissioner’s Court discussion and action(if appropriate)
Jan 8 (2:00pm) – Kickoff meeting with Cities (82 days remain)
Jan 8 – Feb 5 – Participants make changes with GIS or edit at Wilco offices
Feb 6 – Deadline for submissions from Cities & in-person editing
Feb 6-26 – County review and input of edits into Census software
Feb 27 – Draft data sent to participants for review
March 6 (5:00pm) – Deadline for edits of draft to be submitted to the County
March 9-13 – Finalize and prepare final data in Census software
March 13 – Publish final data set to participants
March 16 (Mon) – Submit changes to CAPCOG
March 16-30, 2009 – CAPCOG submits final data to the Census Bureau