Tuesday, September 17, 2024
DE PERE — The City of De Pere is challenging the State of Wisconsin’s preliminary population determination.
Released Jan. 1, it showed 25,439 people living in De Pere — up just 29 from the 2020 census.
States do annual estimates, based on the prior census and analyzing housing units, dormitory and institutional populations, vehicle registrations, and other indicators of change in population to calculate how much revenue-sharing fund money each municipality should receive.
De Pere’s number just can’t be correct, according to the city.
Since the 2020 census, the city has platted some 500 lots and, while not all have been built, many are multifamily and duplexes.
“Over the past five years, the City of De Pere has added nearly 500 planned lots and constructed multifamily units, of which nearly 410 units were completed,” Dan Lindstrom, director of development for De Pere, said.
Of the 410 units, 280 are single-family and two-family homes, he said.
“We haven’t demolished that many homes, so at that point we’ve already grown significantly without it even (being) reflected in their numbers,” Lindstrom said.
Lindstrom said that while the subdivisions being built in recent years aren’t the kinds with huge lots and giant houses, most of the homes are “approachable family sized homes … the 1,700-square-feet to 2,400-square-foot homes that are mostly used by three- or four-bedroom families.”
City Administrator Larry Delo said it’s unclear why the figure is skewed.
“I don’t know if it’s just that we have fewer people getting drivers licenses, if we are having fewer people voting, or if there are different things that are skewing it … but we’re going to try to point out that based on our per capita/per unit average, you can tell this is off,” Delo said.
De Pere’s per household average is about 2.3 or 2.4 people.
Even if households in the 410 units are smaller than the average, the equation adds up to more than 29 people.
“I mean, you can’t add that many units unless you’re wiping out big sections of the city to balance it, and we just haven’t had that,” Delo said.
Population counts are used to determine how much in funding a jurisdiction receives for a variety of uses, including American Rescue Plan Act moneys, grants, and more, according to Delo.
He pointed to the surplus $3.25 billion the state legislature has yet to allocate.
“The likelihood of them using population for something like that is quite high,” Delo said. “So we really want to get the population up to where we think it should be before additional funds are distributed that may use population as a formula.”
Municipalities and counties can challenge their preliminary population assessments by submitting the information supporting their challenge to the state’s department of administration.
“DOA decides whether the preliminary estimate looks less reasonable when considering the new information,” Dan Barroilhet, demographer and research analyst with the DOA’s intergovernmental relations division, said in a statement. “In cases where an adjustment would make the preliminary estimate look more reasonable, DOA makes the adjustment before issuing final population estimates in October.”
