According to estimation by the United States Census, the population in Ozark was a little more than 14,000 residents in 2008.

A number, economic developer Robin Beasley says, should be higher.

"Our numbers show an increase. I am not sure what all the census is using, it's very subjective method. These numbers are its pretty much a guess you can make them go one way or another."

The Census Bureaus' website shows throughout the years the city's population has steadily declined but in recent years it has slowly tried to make a come back.

But Beasly says missed counts of property may have altered the numbers.

"Several months back they sent us some information to go over all of the plots and we had 900 residential addresses that were not included in the census material," says Beasly.

She says Avalon subdivision is among a number of developments in the area, raising the question to her and many others, if residents are coming to live in these new developments, than why is the census saying the numbers have lowered.

"Based on the utilities and the water with those numbers going up, with our building numbers going up each year and more neighborhoods going up each year we have to think there are more people living here."

Brad Powers with Ozark’s utilities board says, "I know that our city has gone down in growth I would say that our cities gone down about 2.5 percent, that's what I had heard recently."

Powers says even though there's been an increase in utilities customers, the number of businesses and residents are staying down.

"There's so many vacant buildings around town that businesses may have come into but didn't stay open very long and they left," says Powers.

Beasly said in March residents will be a receiving a census form with about 10 questions to answer.

She says it is very important that everyone fills theirs out because that will determine the 2010 Census.

Those numbers could open the door to different types of help and grants the city could receive in the future.

U.S. Census Bureau officials say they first break down a county's population by birth and death certificates.

From there they break things down into a cities population.