ALBANY (TNS) — Amid projections for New York to lose at least two more congressional seats after the 2030 census count, a bill that would create a state census office for more accurate counting is being considered at the Capitol.

Every 10 years, census count results are used to calculate the number of congressional seats each state is entitled to. But since the 1950s, New York has lost at least two congressional seats with every census count — falling from 45 to the current 26. In 2020, the state lost one seat after the count came up 89 people short.

”To go back to losing two or more districts is not very promising for New York’s future strength in Washington, New York’s power in Washington,” said Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School.

Now, experts are advocating for a permanent census office that would push the state to take a more proactive role in census outreach and counting to help minimize undercounting in the future. The proposed state office would work with local governments to help with counting efforts, such as maintaining accurate housing lists for the U.S. Census Bureau’s housing data.

Sponsored by Assembly member Michaelle Solages, a Democrat from Hempstead, Nassau County, the bill is in committee.

The bill also comes amid actions under the Trump administration that experts say could impede accurate census counts. Three census advisory committees that were made up of demographers and statisticians were disbanded by the U.S. Census Bureau back in March. Those committees, which provided input and technical expertise to the public for census planning, included the 2030 Census Advisory Committee.

As a result, Jan Vink, a demographer with Cornell University’s Program on Applied Demographics, said he believes that there will need to be a bigger ask from state and local governments to help with the census count, and that he wouldn’t be surprised if New York loses another congressional seat.

”Preparations at a state and local level just takes a lot of time,” Vink said. “If you wait until the last moment until the census bureau reaches out for any helpers, you are too late.”

Additionally, there’s been a renewed push in Congress to require a citizenship question on the census questionnaire to exclude those who aren’t citizens from the count. Despite the Constitution requiring the apportionment of congressional districts to be based on the number of total persons and not just citizens, as Wice pointed out, it’s an idea that both Republicans and Trump have shown support for.

However, as studies indicate, citizenship questions on the census are more likely to result in undercounting as fewer households respond to the questionnaire or omit people when reporting the residents of their address.

While there’s still another half-decade to go until the next 2030 census, there are many complex factors that go into counting the decennial census, said Leslie Reynolds, a researcher at Cornell’s Program on Applied Demographics. That’s why planning ahead is critical for an accurate count.

With a state census office coordinating efforts for the 2030 census, it could help to combat recent obstacles that hamper the counting process.

”It really drives home the importance of the census mission to count everybody once, only once, and in the right place,” said Reynolds. “If you do that a hundred percent correctly, then you have the best likelihood to get accurate representation.”

Wice said while no funding was included in the 2026 state budget for census efforts, he’s “hoping this year to really get the census on the front burner” so that legislators and the public can learn why the proposed state census office is so important.

”We also want to make sure that people understand the census is a building block of our democracy that everything government does,” Wice said. “Whether it’s health, education, transportation … all (are) based on government support and government support is based on funding generated by census dollars and also represents you in Washington.”

Vink said it’s also important to maximize the counting effort because each congressional district means more representation of New Yorkers in Congress.

”For a state, it’s just important to have those voices in the house,” Vink said. “We’re not sure next time around if it will be an upstate seat or a downstate seat. Especially upstate, if they lose another congressional district, that rural voice will get less loud as years go by.”