By Sam Elliott

While the city is still awaiting final word from the US Census Bureau, local officials are expecting for Fishers’ official population numbers to exceed projections of 86,000 residents from before the city’s partial special census.

Local enumerators wrapped up their counting the week of July 11. The US Census Bureau has been processing the numbers and doing statistical analysis ever since, and was at 94 percent completion the last time the bureau updated the city on its status in July. Fishers was initially expecting the bureau’s report to be finished in November, and the deadline to provide that report to the state is Dec. 31.

“We are projecting to be at least at the target we projected, which was 86,000, but we’re hopeful that number might be slightly higher,” Fishers Controller Oscar Gutierrez said. “At the bare minimum, we’ll hit that target number and all of the projections about what our additional revenues should be should actualize.”

Those revenues are expected to total nearly $2 million in state revenues dependent on population. The city had approximately 76,000 residents during the 2010 federal census.

“Our motor vehicle highway revenues, which go directly to road infrastructure, will increase,” Gutierrez said. “And the amount of liquor licenses the city can have will increase. That will allow for additional potential economic development that couldn’t otherwise come in.”

The city elected to conduct a partial special census rather than a full one, picking and choosing parts of Fishers where high growth had been seen since the 2010 census.

“The full census would have cost $1.4 million,” Fishers Deputy Controller Nathan George, who oversaw the project as well as the city’s 2007 special census, said. “This only cost $400,000.”

The logistics involved hiring just more than 50 employees, including one federal employee to serve as a supervisor.

“All of the office staff and the supervisor were all Fishers residents and I think a majority of the people we hired were Fishers residents, so they were really invested in their community,” George said.

Once Fishers’ new population becomes official, the city will — albeit likely briefly — be the fifth-largest in the state.

“We will briefly be the fifth-largest city in Indiana until Carmel does their census and they’ll likely surpass us again,” Gutierrez said.

“The reason this was a success is that all parties involved were vested,” he added “The enumerators who lived in Fishers wanted this to be successful. When people came to the door they were helpful because they knew this would help the city. Everybody who participated, whether they were the people at the homes answering the door or the people going to the door, went into this knowing it would help their community.”