Income surveys successful

(Davenport, WA, June 2, 2016) The Lincoln County Economic Development Council recently completed income surveys on behalf of two Lincoln County municipalities, helping those communities save hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs.

Income surveys have recently become a necessary evil – undesirable but unavoidable. They require that a predetermined, population-based percentage of residents report their annual household incomes to a neutral third party. Although income is a sensitive subject, the surveys were necessary if these communities plan to make major upgrades to their water and sewer systems in the near future.

When government income figures used for determining eligibility for state and federal infrastructure funding were released in 2015, it was discovered that several of our municipalities no longer qualified. The government income estimates were unrealistically high in some cases, and the only way to correct the problem was to provide evidence of true income levels. That, according to state law, could only be achieved by conducting an income survey.

There are stringent guidelines to follow to assure that income survey results are accurate and unbiased and that the data is collected, analyzed and held in confidence by a neutral third party, in this case the Lincoln County EDC. Because the Council had no experience with income surveys, it partnered with the Small Communities Initiative, a program funded by the Washington Department of Commerce, the Department of Health, the Department of Ecology and the Community Development Block Grant Program. Small Communities Initiative representative Jon Galow trained staff members in the proper procedures to follow and worked through the process with them from start to finish.

Income surveys typically are conducted by private consultants. The Council was able to conduct the surveys at a much lower cost and is now qualified to provide the service for other Lincoln County communities if needed. Two more are already considering a survey.

Because of residents’ willingness to cooperate with the surveys, these communities were able to achieve the goal of restoring their eligibility for state and federal infrastructure grants and low-interest loans. “It is important to recognize that this project was not about proving that a community is low income,” explains EDC executive director Margie Hall. “It was about accuracy,” she said. “The government figures were inaccurate, and we proved it.”