Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • November 11, 2019 • Hartford Business Journal 29 OTHER VOICES 2020 Census is vital for CT businesses By Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz T he 2020 Census will play an important role in our state's economic future. This once-a-decade count pro- vides valuable data on communities, including population trends and growth projections. It's in the best interest of the business community to support the state of Connecticut's goal to achieve a complete count. In February, the Lamont-Bysie- wicz administration launched the Connecticut Complete Count Committee to inform and direct the state's efforts in the upcoming census. The committee — made up of over 50 trusted part- ners — is an advisory panel of community leaders from across the state who represent diverse popula- tions including elected officials, faith leaders, community activists, chambers of commerce, health centers, civic groups, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and other nonprofit organizations. This is a major effort in advance of the 2020 Census to ensure that Connecticut will be the most accu- rately counted state in the nation. Counting everyone in this increas- ingly diverse and changing popu- lation is a mammoth undertaking that demands detailed planning and the support of our businesses. Why is the census important, particularly for Connecticut and its business community? Well, we are a "donor" state because we give more money in taxes to the federal government than what we receive. Census data is used to determine nearly $11 billion in funding for Connecticut each year for the 55 largest federal programs that our communities depend on. In fact, for every person that is left out of the count, our state loses an average of $2,900. This includes federal funding for Medicaid and Medicare, Head Start, National School Lunch Program, student-loan assistance, community facility loans, home- heating assistance, highway plan- ning and construction, business and industry loans as well as career and technical-education funding. We cannot risk losing those critical dollars, which is why I was proud to recently announce that the state of Connecticut identified $500,000 within existing and avail- able appropriations across state agencies to aid in census efforts. That state funding will be matched by an additional $500,000 donated by various philanthropic founda- tions throughout the state. This is in addition to almost $400,000 previously committed by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Businesses will be interested in knowing that census data is the basis for distributing federal grants for future economic development. Census data also helps inform bet- ter decision-making with respect to business expansion and hiring strategies. This information helps support growth projections and helps industries identify prime locations to open new operations or markets in which to expand. As companies both within Con- necticut and across the country look closely at their workforce needs, an accurate census count will give businesses a sense of the opportu- nity that exists in our state and have long-range, positive impacts for our region for the next decade. Chambers of commerce and the business community are vital to ensuring that everyone is counted in the 2020 Census, and we ask businesses to help inform em- ployees and partners about the importance of the census. Lt. Gov. Bysiewicz chairs the CT Complete Count Committee for the 2020 Census. Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz students are placed into a depart- ment of their choice and receive hands-on training. At the conclu- sion of the program, a ceremony is held where the students receive certificates, share their experienc- es with presentations, and watch a video that chronicles their journey. In addition to the curriculum, interns learn that excellent careers are available in the industry for stu- dents who may not want or be able to attend college immediately after high school. Many of these entry- level jobs pay very competitively and do not require a college degree. For example, the state Depart- ment of Public Health requires the completion of a public water sys- tem operator certification program in order to obtain certain positions at water utilities such as the MDC. Building off the success of the Learn and Earn program, we developed a water curriculum with Bloomfield High School that introduces students to careers at the MDC during the school year. Together with the Learn and Earn program and our traditional college internship program and workforce- recruitment efforts, the MDC is well equipped with tools to invest in cre- ating our own talent pipeline directly from the communities we serve. Scott Jellison is the CEO of the Metropolitan District Commission, which provides water, sewer and household hazardous waste-collection services in Greater Hartford. universities that are an hour-and- a-half apart," Nemerson said. "We have to think about what we can really do that would be a game- changer the way a place like Aus- tin, Texas, went from a sleepy little town with a big-state university to the head of the IT industry. "We must figure out how you can play off of the fact that we have Yale, which is a world-class brand and center of ideas and innova- tions. It's in a really small place and not really being exploited globally." Jackson Laboratory, too, should have been located in New Haven, or maybe Stamford, keeping it on I-95 and the Amtrak line, which Nemerson described as a main artery for the state, connecting it to New York City. Nemerson is not wrong in his overall thinking. Big cities are the main economic centers these days and Connecticut's lack of one hurts our competitiveness. I also agree that Connecticut should focus its investments on one or two urban centers. New Haven should be one, and Hart- ford the other. The Capital City's concentration of major corpora- tions and universities along with a burgeoning effort to establish a technology base make Hartford ripe for growth, but we can't focus on just downtown. We need more market-rate apartments and com- panies in Hartford neighborhoods. We also can't worry about gentri- fication. Hartford already has by far the highest percentage of afford- able housing in the state. We need more wealthy and highly educated people moving into different parts of the city, as well as a closer col- laboration with neighboring towns. One of the wisest strategic deci- sions in recent years was moving UConn's regional campus from West Hartford to downtown, though the Hartford site should be leveraged further and needs more programs. The question remains: Do we have the political will to change Connecticut's trajectory. Choosing one city over others means some- one's ox gets gored; gaining politi- cal consensus within a 187-mem- ber legislature is no easy task. "We are going to have to do things that are uncomfortable," Nemerson said. "We must think outside the box and challenge some of the orthodoxies — that is the challenge of government." Let's see if the Lamont administra- tion is ready to challenge some of the state's old ways of thinking. Our eco- nomic future may depend on it.

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