To reduce the burden on local governments and avoid duplication of efforts the Census Bureau offers consolidation agreements to counties that might be interested in submitting to the Census Bureau all boundary changes for the legal governments (incorporated places and minor civil divisions) within their jurisdiction. A county does not need 100% participation by all of its entities to participate in a consolidation agreement.
If your county is interested in establishing a BAS consolidation agreement, please contact the Legal Areas Team in our Geography Division by telephone at 301-763-1099 or e-mail geo.bas@census.gov. The Legal Areas Team will provide your BAS contact or designee a Consolidated BAS form listing of all the legal governments within your county. In addition, the Census Bureau will include a list of all the contacts for those governments. The Consolidated BAS form can be used to record each local government contacted and whether they agreed to be included in the consolidated county-level BAS response. The legal governments that agree to the consolidated response will no longer receive a BAS package each year.
The links below provide examples of the documents included in the Consolidation Agreement signup package.
Consolidated County Sign-up Letter [TXT]
Consolidated BAS Form [PDF]
