VIDALIA &8212; For the second straight year, the state Department of Treasury has found Concordia Parish to be losing population. For the second straight year, the police jury will appeal the decision.

This time, jurors are hoping for a different outcome.

The parish population estimate for fiscal year 2005 &8212; July 1, 2004- June 30, 2005 &8212; was deemed to be 19,262, nearly 450 fewer than the previous year.

This figure seems at odds with the estimates the department handed the four municipalities in the parish.

Ferriday has grown by 92 people and Vidalia by 213, according to the department.

And while both Ridgecrest and Clayton saw their populations shrink, the combined loss was just five people.

These numbers, along with the parish&8217;s increase in sales tax revenues, have police jury President Melvin Ferrington confused.

&8220;I don&8217;t know where they&8217;re getting their numbers from,&8221; he said.

It&8217;s not just a point of pride for Ferrington, either, there&8217;s a lot of money at stake.

Every year the treasury department uses population estimates to determine how it divides three pools of money between the parishes: state revenue sharing, parish transportation funds and a rebate program related to the fire insurance each parish pays.

&8220;If they say our population is down, it costs us money,&8221; Ferrington said.

He&8217;s right, Gary Hall, a financial officer with the department said.

&8220;Those population estimates are used to determine disbursements for the coming fiscal year,&8221; he said.

Hall said a parish or municipality has until March 15 to send a letter of appeal to his office. The police jury, at its Monday meeting, voted unanimously to send such a letter.

All appeals will trigger a call to Louisiana Tech University &8212; which conducts the surveys for the department &8212; to reexamine the data used to calculate the population estimate, Hall said.

Mark Chopin, associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the College of Administration and Business, oversees the work on the yearly estimates.

He said his department bases its estimates on surveys it sends to the parishes and municipalities. This survey checks for things like utility meters, school enrollment, nursing home and penitentiary populations, new construction, &8220;anything that might suggest a change in the number of households.&8221;

As for question of the parish&8217;s sales tax increases &8212; they were up more than $20,000 from 2003-04 and on a similar path for 2005 &8212; Chopin said that just reflects economic activity and not necessarily population.

While Ferrington and others in the parish might take issue, Chopin feels confident of his department&8217;s estimates. After all, he gets to check them against the national census every 10 years.

&8220;That&8217;s when we assess our accuracy,&8221; he said. &8220;We come very, very close to the census numbers.&8221;

Ferrington said he hopes the parish&8217;s appeal won&8217;t suffer the same result as last year&8217;s.

&8220;Same thing happened last year, and we opposed it as well,&8221; he said. &8220;And they ruled we had lost the people. (This year) they&8217;re going to have to show us where we lost people.&8221;