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County staff weigh costs of participating in Census LUCA address review
Summary
GIS staff told commissioners the Census Bureau's LUCA invitation would require substantial staff time (roughly 500 hours) and offer only limited gains in address accuracy for Utah County, which already maintains daily-updated address data.
County GIS staff briefed commissioners on an invitation from the U.S. Census Bureau to participate in LUCA (Local Update of Census Addresses), a voluntary program in which local governments review and provide address and boundary data to improve census counts.
Patrick Warrow, GIS manager, said the county maintains an address database and municipal-boundary information that are updated daily but that the LUCA format differs and would require staff time to reformat, perform manual checks and maintain federal privacy requirements. “We certainly have the expertise to do this,” Warrow said, but he added participation would require resources. “I would say it would probably be 500 hours of staff time over the next few years,” he said.
Warrow recommended commissioners weigh the marginal accuracy gains from direct LUCA participation against the staff hours required and possible impacts on other GIS tasks. No formal decision to participate was recorded at the meeting; staff characterized the Census invitation as optional and encouraged the commission to consider the trade-offs.
