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September 30, 2009 No. 76
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CENSUS DIRECTOR DISCUSSES FINAL
PREPARATIONS FOR 2010 COUNT
- House stop-gap funding bill includes reprieve for census operations
- New census toolkit helps nonprofits promote census
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CENSUS DIRECTOR LAYS OUT PROGRESS AND
CHALLENGES IN ADVANCE OF 2010 CENSUS
House Panel Assesses Status of Communications Campaign
Census
Bureau Director Robert Groves said last week that the agency was "on
target for major operations" six months before Census Day (April 1,
2010), calling the 2010 decennial count "a gigantic mobilization of
resources" at his first media briefing since taking office in
July. Dr. Groves, an internationally-known expert in survey
methodology, told reporters gathered at the National Press Club in
Washington, DC that the "behavior of the American public is the
keystone" to the success of the census, explaining that it is a
"challenge" to estimate the initial response rate, due in part to a
higher vacancy rate caused by the recession and foreclosure
crisis. The director noted that the Census Bureau would save $90
million for every one percent of households that mail back their census
forms. Answering the census "is something you can do to help
reduce the federal deficit," he observed.
The
Census Bureau completed the first major field operation, Address
Canvassing, on time last spring, Dr. Groves said, and the agency is now
evaluating the Master Address File that defines the universe for the
enumeration. State and local governments participating in the
Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program will have a final
opportunity this fall to review the updated address list for their
jurisdiction and appeal addresses they believe were mistakenly excluded.
The
next major census operation, Group Quarters Validation, starts this
week. Field staff will visit all addresses marked as "other
living quarters" during the Address Canvassing operation, to verify
their classification as group living facilities, such as college dorms,
nursing homes, prisons, and military barracks, and other unusual living
situations, such as campgrounds and marinas. Census takers will
visit all group quarters next February, to arrange for the enumeration
in April and early May. Census staff work with group facility
administrators to distribute modified census forms -- called Individual
Census Reports -- to residents; they also have the authority to request
administrative records from group facilities in order to count
residents who do not or cannot fill out a form.
From
October through December, the Census Bureau will open 500 Local Census
Offices (LCOs) nationwide. (About 150 of those offices were
operational during Address Canvassing.) Local offices are
responsible for training and supervising the 1.2 million temporary
employees who will fan out across the country starting in May, to
collect information from households that do not return a census form by
mail (or respond by telephone). The
printing of 183 million questionnaires, as well as 15 million bilingual
forms, is "on schedule" and using much of the nation's printing
capacity, the director said. Three data processing centers -- in
Phoenix, Baltimore, and Jeffersonville, IN -- are open, and the Census
Bureau is preparing to open call centers in late February, to field
questions about completing census forms. The bureau and its
advertising contractor, Draftfcb, are finalizing the paid media
campaign, which will launch with an "awareness" phase in January.
"Things are looking pretty good," Dr. Groves said about preparations
for the 2010 count, but there is "much to do."
Census
operations actually start in late January, when census takers will
visit and enumerate households in remote Alaskan villages before
the spring thaw makes it difficult to reach many of these
communities.
Confidence in 2010 census design cited: The
director said he believed the 2010 census design was an improvement
over 2000, citing the first-time use of targeted bilingual
(English-Spanish) census forms and replacement questionnaires for low
mail response areas, as well as the decision to drop a longer, sample
questionnaire that he said placed a burden on the public and reduced
cooperation. (The ongoing American Community Survey has replaced
the traditional long form, collecting a wider range of demographic,
economic, and housing information than the six-topic 2010
census.) He also pointed to new questions on the census form --
called "coverage questions" -- that will help the Census Bureau
identify people who may have been counted twice (such as forms that
include students away at college) or mistakenly left off of
questionnaires. The Census Bureau will follow-up by telephone
with many of the households where the coverage questions indicate a
duplicate count or missing people.
Dr. Groves applauded the
additional funds for outreach and promotion in the stimulus bill
Congress passed last winter, saying the extra money was helping the
Census Bureau reach "trusted voices" at the community level through the
Partnership Program. "I am quite comfortable that we have planned
a better census than we executed in 2000," the director concluded.
Census Bureau faces challenges in months ahead: Dr.
Groves also discussed a number of challenges the Census Bureau faces as
the start of the 2010 census approaches. He said that the senior
2010 census team was "structured well to identify management risk" but
had less high-level experience conducting a census than had teams in
the past. The director said he was supplementing the management
group with seasoned outside advisers: Former Census Director Kenneth
Prewitt; former Associate Director for Decennial Census John Thompson;
and former Chief Financial Officer Nancy Potok. (See the July 5,
2009 Census News Brief #68 for
more information on the three advisers, who were originally appointed
by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke while the U.S. Senate delayed a vote
on Dr. Groves' nomination. Dr. Potok is now the Deputy Under
Secretary for Economic Affairs, Department of Commerce.) Dr.
Groves also noted the retirement of key mathematical statisticians, a
problem he said was shared by other federal statistical
agencies.
Dr.
Groves emphasized the importance of maintaining the Census Bureau as a
"nonpartisan and apolitical agency." "I need to fight that battle
daily," the director said, later clarifying in response to a reporter's
question that he was not under pressure to politicize the census, but
that it "isn't unusual" for people "with very strong political views
[to] care about the census." The agency, he said, must
acknowledge the political uses of census data but work to "ensure that
the process can never be politicized."
Development
of software for processing information collected during door-to-door
visits from unresponsive households was proceeding "on schedule" but
under "very tight" deadlines, Dr. Groves said, noting the late decision
to revert to a pencil-and-paper follow-up method when the Census Bureau
lost confidence in its ability to use new GPS-equipped handheld
computers for the vast field operation. He also said the quality
of the final address list was a factor in the success of the census.
The
director cited "the new media environment," including the
"blogosphere," as a challenge, and said the agency would launch
web-based outreach in the next several weeks. He also reminded
reporters that there will not be an Internet response option in 2010,
saying he feared possible deceptive web sites to trick the public into
providing personal information to scammers. The director has
established an internal working group to monitor possible Internet
deception during the census.
Over
the longer term, Dr. Groves said, he is "worried and concerned about
cost estimation and cost control" for the census. In testimony
last week before the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census,
and National Archives, Director Groves said there were cost overruns in
parts of the Address Canvassing operation, suggesting a problem with
cost models used to predict total costs.
House panel reviews 2010 census communications campaign:
The House subcommittee responsible for census oversight also focused on
the 2010 Census Integrated Communications Campaign, which Chairman
William "Lacy" Clay said "could play a key role in reducing the
undercount, as it did in 2000," at its hearing on September 22.
Judith
Gordon, Principal Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Evaluation,
Department of Commerce, told panel members that the Census Bureau "has
been diligent in its management and monitoring" of the $300 million
communications contract with Draftfcb, but that the advertising
agency's initial communications plan and delivery of promotional items
to Regional Census Offices were delayed. The Inspector General's
office is continuing to monitor the Partnership Program, another key
component of the effort to educate the public about the importance of
the census and to encourage participation. Ms. Gordon noted that
the Census Bureau recently met its goal of hiring an additional 2,027
partnership staff using $120 million in stimulus bill funds.
Jeff
Tarakajian, Chairman and CEO of Draftfcb, also testified at the
oversight hearing. A full set of statements from the session is
available at http://informationpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2600.
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HOUSE APPROVES ONE MONTH STOP-GAP FUNDING MEASURE
Facing
the end of the fiscal year with no annual spending bills signed into
law, the U.S. House of Representatives approved, by a vote of 217 -
190, a temporary funding measure -- called a Continuing Resolution (CR)
-- that would fully fund preparations for the 2010 census while
Congress works to complete final appropriations measures for Fiscal
Year 2010. The U.S. Senate will take up the bill early this week,
before the new budget year starts on October 1.
H.R. 2918
allocates $7.066 billion for the Census Bureau's Periodic Censuses and
Programs ("Periodics") account, to keep 2010 census operations moving
forward as planned and on schedule. The bill would fund federal
agencies and programs through October 31, most at their current (Fiscal
Year 2009) levels; appropriators carved out an exception for the 2010
census, which falls under the Periodics account. Limiting the
Census Bureau's spending to current year levels would jeopardize
final preparations for the 2010 census, since the agency's funding will
more than
double from 2009 to 2010. (The Continuing Resolution was attached
to the regular funding bill for the Legislative Branch.)
The
House-passed stop-gap Census Bureau funding level matches the amount
the Senate Appropriations Committee approved in its version of the
Fiscal Year 2010 Commerce, Justice, and Science bill in July.
That committee reduced the agency's 2010 census budget request by $50
million, which it said reflected inflated assumptions about the cost of
mileage reimbursement for census field workers. (The full Senate
has
not yet considered the measure.)
The
House of Representatives approved its version of the FY2010 Commerce,
Justice, and Science Appropriations bill (H.R. 2847) in June,
appropriating $6.91 billion for Periodic Censuses and Programs.
House appropriators said they believed the Census Bureau could
supplement that amount with $206 million left over from 2009; the
Census Bureau said it had already obligated those funds for media buys
in 2010.
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STAKEHOLDER ACTIVITIES
New toolkit helps nonprofits promote 2010 census: The
Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network (NVEN) has prepared a comprehensive
toolkit to help state and local organizations promote participation in
the upcoming census among their members and the people they serve at
the community level.
Available on a CD-ROM and on-line, "A
Census Toolkit for Nonprofit Organizations: Mobilizing Communities for
the 2010 Census" includes fact sheets in English and Spanish, sample
census questionnaires, a 2010 Census partnership agreement form, and
other resources. Visit http://www.nonprofitscount.org/ to order a toolkit and to access other information prepared for the Nonprofits Count! campaign.
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CONDOLENCES
We
extend our deepest sympathies to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and her
family on the loss of the congresswoman's husband, Clifton
Maloney. Mr. Maloney passed away during a mountain climbing
expedition in the Himalayas this weekend.
Rep. Maloney has
served on the House census oversight subcommittee for many years,
including as the panel's ranking Democratic member during the 2000
census. She has been instrumental in keeping her congressional
colleagues informed about the importance of the census and the work of
the Census Bureau generally.
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Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal,
an independent legislative and policy consultant specializing in the
census and federal statistics. All views expressed in the News Briefs
are solely those of the author. Please direct questions about the
information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at TerriAnn2K@aol.com.
Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested
individuals and organizations. Ms. Lowenthal is a consultant to the
nonpartisan Census Project, organized by the Communications Consortium
Media Center in Washington, DC. Previous Census News Briefs are posted
at www.thecensusproject.org.
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