ADJUSTED CENSUS COUNT MUST BE RELEASED.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

PORTLAND, Ore. - A federal appeals court ruled that the Census Bureau must release its statistically adjusted count for every state, county and neighborhood in the country - a decision that could affect how billions in government money is distributed.

Democrats, big-city politicians and civil-rights groups have charged that the 2000 census missed 3.2 million people - most of them minorities and the poor - and that many communities are being shortchanged government funding that is distributed by population.

After census takers and census questionnaires were sent out in 2000, the Census Bureau used mathematical formulas to estimate how many minorities, renters and others might have been missed in inner cities, rural areas and other places. Those figures are often called the ``undercount.''

Los Angeles officials had estimated that the region could lose up to $1.8 million in government funds because of the undercount - the city could miss out on nearly $400,000, and other cities and Los Angeles County up to $1.4 million over the next decade.

``This is like a ray of sunshine breaking through,'' said Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. economist Jack Kyser.

``You just know there are more people out there, and it's tough to capture them,'' said Kyser, who said the windfall comes if the Census Bureau uses the numbers for federal funding. ``More money will be coming in to the county and the city, and more accurately reflecting the magnitude of the services they have to deliver.''

The City Attorney's Office and county counsel were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

In a unanimous decision filed late Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the public is entitled under federal open-government law to see the Census Bureau's adjusted figures, which show how many people were probably missed.

The court rejected Census Bureau arguments that releasing the data would expose sensitive internal debates and have a ``chilling effect'' on future policy discussions at the agency.

Census Bureau officials declined to comment and referred calls to the Justice Department, where spokesman Charles Miller said no decision has been made on whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. He would not comment on the ruling itself. Local census officials could not comment.

The ruling only mandates that the Census Bureau release the adjusted figures. It does not actually force the bureau to use those numbers in place of the unadjusted figures that were issued for political redistricting and the distribution of billions in federal funding.

A 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars the use of adjusted numbers for reapportioning congressional seats.

Local officials last year had tried to get the undercount released, believing at the time that as many as 153,000 Los Angeles city residents were missed in the 2000 census.

The city had estimated that the undercount could result in the loss of $37.5 million in federal money for each of the next 10 years. It had also estimated that because of the 1990 undercount, the city had lost some $130 million in federal aid over 10 years.

On Wednesday, Kyser estimated that countywide a couple of hundred thousand people were missed in the count.

Statewide, officials also pointed to the importance of releasing the numbers, saying California had 20 percent of the national undercount after the 1990 Census - just under 1 million people.