Carroll County Public Schools & the Census

I received one of the AlertNow Messages from Carroll County Public Schools today. You would expect emails from the CCPS to be in good form, would you not? I know that I'm not perfect, but sometimes stupid things just jump out at me. And this message has 2 of them:


Remember April 1 is Census Day. Take 10 minutes to fill out your 2010 Census form and mail it back. If 100% of households mailed back their forms, taxpayers would save $1.5 BILLION dollars. Let's all do our part and mail back our forms!


First, saying "$1.5 BILLION dollars" is like saying 1.5 billion dollars dollars, isn't it? That's why Al Gore invented the dollar sign - so that we wouldn't have to type dollars at the end.


Second, how will returning the Census form save $1.5 BILLION? "Thank goodness, Larry. All 100% of the people returned the form. That will save us $1.5 billion." "What do you mean, Elmer? $1.5 billion to do what?" "Not sure, Larry. But we saved it! Now we can use that money to save even more money in the healthcare system!" "That doesn't make sense, Elmer." "Stop asking questions, Larry, and go back to work."