U.S. Census workers will soon spread out across Texas neighborhoods, going door-to-door to count the millions who didn’t fill out their 2010 questionnaires. This week marked the deadline to respond via mail, and Texas once again fell below the national participation average.

Sixty-eight percent of Texans mailed back forms, compared to 71 percent nationally. That means Texas could again lose out on millions, or perhaps billions, in monies for transportation, schools and health and human services programs.

Had every household in the country responded, $1.5 billion in taxpayer money could have been put to other use. That’s how much the bureau estimated it would cost to do a complete door-to-door count. Some of Texas’ hardest to count areas, the impoverished areas near the border known as colonias, were of particular concern in the early stages of the U.S. Census Bureau’s campaign to raise awareness about the decennial count. But Census Director Robert Groves admitted to the Rio Grande Guardian that despite its best efforts, the department fell short of its outreach goals in the area.