LAKE COUNTY – Census officials say that it's time to turn in 2010 Census forms.

For those who have not completed and mailed back their 2010 Census forms, Friday, April 16, is the to do so.

As of Thursday, April 15, the nationwide participate rate was at 68 percent. In California, the rate was 66 percent, down from the 73 percent reported in 2000.

Lake County's participation rate so far, 56 percent, has surpassed the 54-percent rate for 2000, the US Census Bureau reported.

Lake is among only four California counties – including Lassen, Plumas and Tuolumne – that have improved their rates over the 2000 Census, according to the most recent statistics. One county, Calaveras, has tied its 2000 return rate of 54 percent, while the rest of the state so far is showing slightly lower returns.

Completing and mailing back the census forms now will not only save taxpayers up to $60 per house, but also a census taker knocking on their doors – an interruption of their quality time – while they are eating dinner or watching their favorite TV shows.

It costs taxpayers only 42 cents to mail back the postage-paid census form, but it costs $57 to recruit, hire, train and send a census worker out to collect information from the same 10-simple questions for each and every non-responding household.

Next week, the U.S. Census Bureau will begin to compile the address lists and maps of households that have failed to send back their census forms.

An approximately 800,000 census workers will fan out across the nation to collect information from an estimated 48 million households beginning May 1.

In some areas, this door-knocking operation may begin as early as April 29.

It's a huge operation that takes time to compile and print millions of addresses and maps; therefore, we need to have received the completed census forms as soon as possible.

A special “March to the Mailbox” event will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Austin Park in Clearlake. For more information about that event, click here: Community invited to Saturday Census 2010 event .

For more information about the US Census, visit www.2010census.gov.

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