Nonprofits say redefinition of metro areas could hurt rural funding, mount campaign to urge a delay and more study

Proposed changes to the Office of Management and Budget's metropolitan/nonmetro definition
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"A group of researchers, service organizations, and nonprofit leaders are organizing a national campaign to urge the Office of Management and Budget to delay redefining metropolitan statistical areas, the county categorization system that underlies many rural-focused federal programs,” Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder. The change would increase the minimum population of core cities for an MSA from 50,000 to 100,000, classifying of about 140 metropolitan areas as "micropolitan," which now applies to areas with core cities of 10,000 to 49,999. That would "about 250 counties with 18 million residents, according to an OMB estimate based on 2010 census data," Marema reports.

The proposal is open for comments through Friday, March 19, The OMB's Federal Register announcement about the proposed change, made in the closing days of the Trump administration, says federal agencies shouldn’t use its classification system to determine program and funding eligibility, but many federal agencies use the classification system, as well as other ways of categorizing places.

The Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution are asking groups to sign a joint letter highlighting concerns about the proposal. "The letter says that increasing the number of nonmetropolitan counties could increase competition for scarce rural funding,” Marema reports. “The sign-on letter says OMB should take a comprehensive look at the metropolitan definition, instead of changing just the population criterion. That would give the agency the opportunity to review the non-statistical consequences of any changes.”