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IS BROOKLYN BEING COUNTED? PROBLEMS WITH

THE 2010 CENSUS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 19, 2010

Serial No. 111–101

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 19, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Flateau, John, Deputy Secretary of the New York State Senate, census

coordinator for New York ............................................................................. 4

Groves, Dr. Robert M., Director, U.S. Census Bureau, accompanied by

Lester A. Farthing, Regional Director, U.S. Census Bureau New York

Regional Census Center ............................................................................... 17

Zinser, Todd J., inspector general, U.S. Department of Commerce ............. 26

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Flateau, John, Deputy Secretary of the New York State Senate, census

coordinator for New York, prepared statement of ...................................... 7

Groves, Dr. Robert M., Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 20

Zinser, Todd J., inspector general, U.S. Department of Commerce, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 28

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IS BROOKLYN BEING COUNTED? PROBLEMS

WITH THE 2010 CENSUS

MONDAY, JULY 19, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Brooklyn, NY.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. at Brooklyn

Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY, Hon. Edolphus

Towns (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Towns, Clarke, Clay, and Rangel.

Staff present: Carla Hultberg, chief clerk; Bill Jusino, Phyllis

Love, and Ryshelle McCadney, professional staff members; Shrita

Sterlin, deputy director of communications; and Ron Stroman, staff

director.

Chairman TOWNS. The committee will come to order.

Good morning. Thank you for coming. Today we will examine an

event that occurred June 12th and June 13, 2010, which resulted

in whistleblower allegations against two former managers at the

Brooklyn Northeast Census Office, who ordered census forms to be

completed fraudulently using information from an online data

source instead of personal interviews.

We want to understand what happened, how much damage was

done, and what is being done to insure the accuracy of the Brooklyn census count. I want each and every resident of Brooklyn to

know how important it is for them to be counted in this census.

This committee has made the 2010 census a top priority; and I

don’t have to tell you how troubled I am about this incident. Anything that compromises the integrity of the 2010 census is unacceptable. There is too much at stake here. We must do everything

in our power to make sure the final count is accurate and complete.

As a co-sponsor of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement

Act, I am gratified to know that the problems in the Brooklyn

Northeast Local Census Office came to light because of a whistleblower complaint. These complaints initiated an investigation by

the Census Bureau Headquarters and the New York Regional Center, which resulted in the swift termination of the two people who

were responsible.

We need to know what has happened since that occurred, because I’m concerned that a couple of bad apples may have undermined the public’s faith in the census. An accurate census is essential to insure integrity and in redrawing congressional districts. In

addition, billions of dollars in the Federal, State, and local funds

are distributed based on the Census Bureau’s report on our Nation’s population. The census helps policymakers better understand

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where vital services are needed most. I represent a district that is

comprised of a number of so-called hard to count communities; senior citizens, recent immigrants, undocumented workers and people

who don’t trust a stranger knocking on their door.

I recognize that these communities present challenges to the

Census Bureau; but these challenges must be met. With so many

in our communities in need of help, we need to get this census

count right.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. I hope they

will tell us how they have responded to this incident that occurred

on June 12th and June 13th, and to make sure we have an accurate and complete count of Brooklyn’s residents. Once again, I want

to let the Census Bureau know that this committee is eager to

work with you to make that happen.

At this time I would like to yield to the subcommittee chair, the

gentleman from St. Louis, MO, Congressman Clay; the person who

has the oversight responsibility at the subcommittee level.

Congressman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first thank you and

your staff for facilitating this hearing. And thank you for your hospitality, and I’m always happy to return to Kings County—no offense, Congressman Rangel—and this impressive, historical Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Chairman Towns has provided significant help and support to me

personally in my capacity as chairman of the Information Policy,

Census, and National Archives Subcommittee.

Further, the subcommittee has long recognized the significance

of an accurate count in Brooklyn. A subcommittee field hearing was

held here in February with a positive dialog on reducing the census

undercount in group quarters.

Today, however, we seek to glean information on the problems

brought to light via the inspector general’s hotline. The falsification

of documents and fraudulent completion of census forms are serious issues and have far-reaching implications. I’m hopeful that Dr.

Groves and Inspector General Zinser will provide the oversight

committee, the evidence to insure that census 2010 enumeration is

on the correct track; and that effective measures were taken to

mitigate the damage done by a few.

Kings County is one of the hardest counties to count in the

United States. And it is crucial that the count here and, of course,

all across the Nation is accurate and substantiated. So much is at

stake; Federal funds, national prominence and legislative position.

Mr. Chairman, I share your concerns and look forward to today’s

hearings. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you to the gentleman from St. Louis for

his comments at this time.

I would like to yield to Congressman Rangel from Manhattan. Of

course, I want you to know that the fact that he is in Brooklyn

from Manhattan, it’s a very serious hearing. [Laughter.]

Congressman Rangel.

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for inviting me to share with you this hearing. I want to thank Congressman Clay. He’s done a terrific job in terms of the 2010 census, and

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all of his staff. He was able to put together this hearing so that

we can have a search for the truth.

I want to thank Mr. Farthing especially for the amount of time

he spent in my congressional district and especially in the borough.

My congressional district like yours, has a lot of obstacles that census takers had to overcome. And all the work that’s been invested

to make certain the process maintains its integrity is so important,

that if we find something going wrong, we do exactly what you are

doing; have hearings, find out what went wrong, and make certain

it doesn’t happen again.

And of course, it’s good to see my friend Dr. Groves, who’s

worked with us in Harlem and the city all together. Of course, we

can’t say Brooklyn without talking about the borough president.

And so it’s very exciting to be here, and thank you once again for

the invitation.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you, Congressman Rangel.

At this time, we’d like to hear from the borough president of

Brooklyn; a person who’s provided leadership in this borough for

the past 9 years, borough president, Marty Markowitz.

Mr. MARKOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very

much.

First of all, Congressman Clay, welcome to the 4th largest city

in America, which is Brooklyn, U.S.A. After the census, I’m confident we’ll still be the fourth, if not the third.

Certainly, Congressman Rangel, it’s always a good day when we

see you here in Brooklyn. Which, by the way, Congressman Rangel

comes here quite regularly. I’ll tell you something. In fact, if he

wasn’t a Congressman in Manhattan, in Harlem, he might relocate

to Brooklyn, if he had his choice.

So thank you for your outstanding leadership nationally, as well

as here in New York; and of course to our chair, Ed Towns. I always call myself Marty ‘‘Towns’’ Markowitz, and I say so with a lot

of pride. He started here, right in this building, as deputy borough

president.

Today he went right past me, and that’s for sure. We’re very

proud of you, Congressman. Thank you for holding this important

hearing here in city hall of the city of Brooklyn. Thank you very,

very much.

Let me, if I may, give a special welcome to Todd Zinser, Inspector

General from the U.S. Department of Commerce, and from the

Census Bureau, the Director, Dr. Robert Groves; and of course,

thank you for allowing Lester, who we know as Tony Farthing, as

being such an outstanding leader as your New York regional director.

There’s no doubt that, over all, the Census Bureau did an incredible job with census 2010. The borough initiated broader outreach

efforts throughout Brooklyn’s many communities.

This is a large county, as you know. Trying to count every person

living within its borders is a mammoth undertaking. I’m confident

that the Bureau understands the gravity of what occurred at one

of your Brooklyn locations.

I applaud them for listening to the whistleblowers who knew

what their superiors were asking them to do. What these important

employees did is a real act of courage. Even in this tough job marVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:29 Feb 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63037.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ket, they believed enough in the census to risk their jobs and do

what is right.

Thanks to the Census Bureau, we know we are one of the fastest

growing parts of New York City. Historically, Brooklyn has always

been undercounted in the census. That’s why for much of this year

our office here at Borough Hall initiated the Complete Count Committee, reaching out to communities borough-wide, and urging

them to spread the word about the importance of the census.

Brooklyn deserves an accurate count, and we can’t be satisfied

with anything less. And we have to remember, having an impact

on the count isn’t just detrimental to Brooklyn. If Brooklyn were

its own city—which of course I wish we could correct the great mistake of 1898—we still would be the 4th largest city in the Nation,

putting us ahead of Houston, TX.

So getting the census right in Brooklyn isn’t just a local issue,

Mr. Chairman, it’s a national one. Today it’s about making sure

what happened at the Brooklyn bureau never happens again; because when it comes to the census, we have just one request. We

want to be counted accurately.

Thank you very, very much.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you, Marty Markowitz. We appreciate

your involvement and your leadership in this record, as well.

Now, we would like to have the deputy secretary of the New

York State Senate 2010 census coordinator for New York, a person

who has lived this for a long time. He was here when the census

office was burned down. We always have seen a lot of problems in

this area. Of course, Mr. John Flateau has been there down

through the years. So at this time, we would like to ask him to give

his statement.

STATEMENT OF JOHN FLATEAU, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF THE

NEW YORK STATE SENATE, CENSUS COORDINATOR FOR

NEW YORK

Mr. FLATEAU. Good morning and welcome to Brooklyn, our historical gateway city, premier urban community in America. I’m a

long-time resident of Central Brooklyn. I’m a Medger Evers College

CUNY professor; and I currently work for the Senate, coordinating

the 2010 census efforts on behalf of Conference Leader Senator

John Samson, and Census Chair, Senator Martin Dilan.

I also had the honor of serving as chair of the U.S. Census Advisory Committee on the African-American Population, for census

2000.

Thank you, Congressman Towns, our distinguished people’s Congressman, and Members of Congress, for conducting this important

hearing on the 2010 census.

One might ask the question, Why is Brooklyn important to the

2010 census? Here are a few reasons why. If Brooklyn were a city,

it would be the 4th largest city in America. Second, Brooklyn, or

Kings County, is the largest county in the State of New York. It

is the largest of its 62 counties. And one-eighth of all residents of

New York State reside in Brooklyn, where we now sit. There are

17 counties throughout the State with less than 50,000 people. We

have neighborhoods larger than that in Brooklyn. BedfordStuyvesant, my home community, has twice that population. And

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it is one of America’s hardest to count neighborhoods, a locale of

consistent minority population undercounts in previous censuses.

Third, approximately 15 percent of the State’s entire congressional, State Senate and Assembly delegations come from just one

county and borough; you guessed it, Brooklyn U.S.A. Thus, Brooklyn’s voice in Washington, Albany, and city hall will be determined

by legislative redistricting based on the 2010 census. Senator Dilan

is the co-chair, and I’m a member of the legislative Task Force on

Demographic Research and Reapportionment. They provided the

major mapping and data support for our 2010 census efforts, along

with several other census offices.

Another very important reason why we should pay attention to

Brooklyn: Brooklyn is just one of three counties in New York State

which is covered by Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which

requires preclearance from the Justice Department or D.C. Federal

courts before making any changes in election policy or practice.

As the Congressman mentioned, Brooklyn’s fair share of our na- tional $445 billion in Federal programs and services will be determined by Brooklyn’s 2010 census data. Civil rights and anti-discrimination enforcement in employment, housing, education, as

well as voting rights enforcement for Brooklyn’s racial minorities,

will be based on statistical analyses using 2010 census data.

Finally, Brooklyn and its 2.6 million people are one of the most

diverse counties in America, in terms of immigration, race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic statistics, etc. There are nearly 1 million diverse housing units throughout Brooklyn; and Brooklyn is an

epicenter for mortgage foreclosure crises.

These are some of the major reasons why it is critical to achieve

a 100 percent count in the 2010 census. Brooklyn, with its diversity

and demographic change, is America’s ultimate laboratory for getting the census count right.

The State Senate played a major role in helping to bring that

about, with our outreach efforts, mailings, targeted robo calls,

media advertising to hard to count areas, and low mail response

areas. The results are that the mail participation rates in New

York City and in Brooklyn are on the rise. Congressman Towns’

district, Congresswoman Clarke’s district in Brooklyn, and our Senate districts in Brooklyn all had increases in their mail participation rates from 2000 to 2010. You have before you a brief historical

table of all of the censuses that have taken place in Brooklyn since

1790.

Currently, the Bureau estimates that there are 2.6 million people

in Brooklyn: Over 1 million Whites, 1 million Blacks, almost

400,000 Hispanics, and over a quarter of a million Asians reside in

Brooklyn right now. Brooklyn’s diverse communities must all be

counted.

Thank you, Congressman Towns and Members of Congress, for

this honor to bring remarks, which hopefully frame a Brooklyn context for this important hearing on the 2010 census. Your leadership

on this issue is vital to defining America’s people and future. Much

is at stake. Please do all in your power to insure that all of Brooklyn, New York State, and indeed, all of America, is counted in the

2010 census.

Thank you.

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Flateau follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. I’d like to thank you, Dr. Flateau, for your

statement. Of course we look forward to working with you as we

continue to get it right. And we appreciate all you’ve done in the

past, not only this census, but in the years past.

Thank you so much for your statement.

Mr. FLATEAU. Thank you, Congressman.

Chairman TOWNS. I request unanimous consent that visiting

Members who do not serve on the committee be allowed to attend

the hearing and question witnesses. Without objection, so ordered.

Let me ask the next panel to come forward, please? Before you

take your seats, I’ll swear you in.

Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOWNS. Let the record reflect that they all answered

in the affirmative.

You may be seated.

Dr. Groves, it’s good to see you. And with so many in our communities in need of help, we need to get this census count right. And

we have had some problems in this same area before. Ten years

ago we had problems, 20 years ago we had problems. And of course

here we are again, with problems.

So we want to make certain that we do everything that we can

this time around to get it right. We want to work with you to make

certain that occurs. So what we would like to hear from you now

is what happened on June 12th, June 13th and what you’ve done

since that incident on June 12th and June 13th. And of course, as

you know, we have had conversations in the past, and I have tried

to convey to you how serious this issue is for us, because there are

so many things riding on this.

When you look at reapportionment, when you look at housing

dollars, when you look at food stamps; when you look at all of the

things that you get as a result of the census count, it is important

that we get it right. Because here again, it is about fairness.

On that note, let me describe how we work; 5 minutes, of course,

for your statement, and the lights will go—first it’s on green and

then it will go on yellow for caution, and then it will go on red. I

want you to know red, everywhere in the United States of America,

means stop.

Dr. Groves.

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT M. GROVES, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, ACCOMPANIED BY LESTER A. FARTHING, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU NY REGIONAL

CENSUS CENTER

Mr. GROVES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m happy to be here.

Subcommittee Chairman Clay, Congressman Rangel, Congresswoman Clarke, I appreciate the opportunity to provide this testimony and to clarify and describe the problems we discovered in the

local census office in Brooklyn just about a month ago.

In recent weeks, our colleagues in the Brooklyn Northeast local

census office contacted Census Bureau senior staff, as well as the

Office of Inspector General, alleging that management staff members in that office were using an Internet data base called

FastData, a software package installed on office computers to subVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:29 Feb 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63037.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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stitute information about households they were supposed to be

interviewing.

A second set of allegations that I’ll speak to later indicated staff

in two Brooklyn offices also falsified population counts for households, for which they were unable to determine the population

count at point of interview. We investigated this. We confirmed

that in both instances, staff members acted in clear violation of our

procedures and we are now reworking the affected cases to insure

that data are accurate.

Mr. Chairman, this is deeply troubling. I find it abhorrent to the

principles, all principles underlying the work of the Census Bureau. It undermines the outstanding work of hundreds of thousands of our enumerators around the country.

We cannot and we do not tolerate such behavior. When we find

such behavior we terminate the personnel and redo the affected

work. The ethical violations that we have in this case are at the

managerial level, and those are particularly troubling to me. Nonetheless, I think it’s important to stress that the events of this nature unfortunately have occurred in prior censuses.

During training, therefore, we instruct our staff to contact both

senior Census Bureau staff and the Office of the Inspector General

if they see anything, if they suspect procedures aren’t being followed.

We train them to do this, we’ve established mechanisms that we

employ to correct those problems; and indeed, that’s what occurred

in this case.

The quality assurance mechanism we employ routinely is a reinterviewing, following up on some of the nonresponsive followup

interviews. We systematically reinterview a random 4 percent of

each person’s, each census taker’s cases, and sample enumerator’s

initial completed interviews at a much higher rate.

We then examine data beyond that, looking for what we call

‘‘outliers,’’ unusual patterns of responses that may indicate falsification or fabrication. In total, about 5 percent of the work nationally and here locally in Brooklyn are completely redone through

this reinterview process, and we compare the reinterviews with the

initial interview data, looking for cases that appear to not to have

followed our training guidelines.

In this case, an office clerk in field operations contacted our regional office staff leaving a phone message, alerting them to what

they thought was unusual activity, this activity taking place on

Sunday, June 13th. The charge was inappropriate use of this Internet data base to complete enumerator questionnaires. This same

clerk and an office operations supervisor reported this activity to

the Inspector General’s office hotline on Monday, June 14th. The

regional census office began their internal investigation on that following Monday, June 14th, based on the phone message left at the

regional office the day before.

The office was instructed to cease using FastData, this Internet

data base, immediately, for nonresponse followup data collection.

The Inspector General complaint was transmitted to the chief of

the field division in D.C. at the Census Bureau on Monday evening,

June 14th.

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Then headquarters officials conducted an independent investigation of the allegations on Thursday, June 17th, that included interviews in the office, with office and some field staff personnel. We

also reviewed various reports on re-interview and other quality

control procedures, and then we looked at FastData usage reports.

One of the important things to note is this Internet data base,

unbeknownst to the user, generates a log file. So nationally we

know every user’s query into this data base, the date, and the user

name. This is a great piece of evidence to investigate this kind of

problem. Headquarters officials completed the investigation on

June 18th and provided preliminary results the same day. The

local office manager and the assistant manager for field operations

in that office were terminated later that same day. The primary

finding here was that the inappropriate use of this FastData Internet data base did occur at the direction of the office manager and

the assistant manager. The information was transcribed onto incomplete enumerator questionnaires between June 12th and June

13th. And then a secondary finding is that the manager and the

assistant manager attempted to cover up this activity. In these

cases, our job is to determine what cases are affected by the bad

behavior and then to do essentially a redo process, going over the

work, make sure we get good data.

A group from the central office, from headquarters, traveled to

New York on Monday the 21st. As a result of their findings, that

investigation, a decision was made to proceed with re-enumerating

of all the cases completed on or after June 12th that were not yet

checked in at all; and to direct the office management team to have

all rework conducted by enumerators or crew leaders who did not

do the original work in question. We wanted to make sure this was

an independent effort.

To insure that the questionable activity didn’t spill over to other

census offices, we did a complete independent investigation of other

offices in the area.

We also picked up a second allegation that was e-mailed to both

me and the Office of the Inspector General, about putting into

place population counts that were not clearly observable. We’re in

the middle of the investigation of that. This has generated proxy

data that we believe is not accurate.

We are in the midst of a national review of that, looking at the

data as returned from offices throughout the country, to make sure

that we repair this when found, and that we find it whenever it

occurs.

In conclusion, I want to say how troubled I am that this occurred. These are not the standards we seek to attain at the Census Bureau. The vast majority of our employees are following the

procedures as laid out by us and do excellent work. Thankfully, we

have procedures in place to address the problems when they occur.

I’m also thankful for the efforts of the Office of the Inspector General in helping us identify and respond to the issues.

I’m joined today by New York Regional Director Tony Farthing,

and we’re happy to take your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Groves follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Dr. Groves.

At this time, we’ll hear from you, Mr. Zinser.

STATEMENT OF TODD J. ZINSER, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Mr. ZINSER. Chairman Towns, Representative Clay, Representative Rangel and Representative Clarke, I appreciate the opportunity be here today to testify on whistleblower allegations we received concerning census operations here in Brooklyn, and the

steps being taken to insure the accuracy of the 2010 decennial

counts.

We have submitted a written statement that briefly summarizes

the results of recent investigations and the serious allegations that

managers in the Brooklyn Northeast local census office directed

employees to falsify census questionnaires during non-response followup, using information from a proprietary online data base.

My written statement also addresses the corrective actions taken

by Census to insure the fraudulent questionnaires are redone and

completed correctly.

On June 14th, upon receiving two whistleblower complaints alleging irregularities with the nonresponse followup operation in the

Brooklyn Northeast local census office, my staff took the following

actions: That same day, we promptly alerted the Census Bureau

headquarters of the alleged irregularities, emphasizing that the allegations were extremely serious and that they warranted investigation. We alerted the Census Bureau right away, based on protocols established between my office and the Census Bureau, aimed

at identifying and reporting problems with the operations as soon

as possible, to enable the Census Bureau to initiate corrective action. That was done in this case.

Some questions have been raised by the committee about this

process, specifically whether in sharing this complaint information

with the Census Bureau, we also shared the identity of the whistleblower with them.

I want to give the committee complete assurance that we did not

share the whistleblowers’ identities with the Census Bureau. We

protected the identity of the whistleblowers by redacting any identifying information from their complaints before the allegations

were forwarded by my office. Second, my office has remained actively involved in this matter. We monitor census actions to assess

the complaints. And on June 28th, based on the facts coming to

light, we converted these complaints from the hotline case to a

criminal investigation, and we’ve assigned Special Agents to the

matter.

Since that time, my office has taken the following actions: OIG

Special Agents have secured evidence of suspected enumerator

questionnaires. The OIG Special Agents have interviewed census

workers who were directed to carry out the improper orders of local

census office managers.

The OIG special agents recently obtained a sworn confession

from a former manager, and are working to secure the cooperation

of others involved. We are continuing to coordinate our investigative efforts with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District

of New York. We are also overseeing remediation efforts with reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:29 Feb 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63037.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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spect to the fraudulent questionnaires. As indicated in my written

statement, there have been problems with the remediation effort

the census must address.

To correct the fraudulent questionnaires at the Brooklyn Northeast office, the Census Bureau initiated a re-enumeration of those

addresses. There are established guidelines for conducting re-enumerations.

However, during the course of this re-enumeration, we received

additional hotline calls that there were irregularities in the way

the re-enumeration activities were being carried out. These irregularities appear to have been the results of an interpretation of the

re-enumeration guidelines.

As a result of this mis-interpretation, census workers may have

entered incorrect information on the questionnaires, based on assumptions about the number of people who resided at the address;

for example, based on the number of names on the mailbox.

When it was reported to us that this was happening, we asked

the Census Bureau to address the allegations and the Census Bureau’s assessment to what extent the re-enumeration must be done

over. We will continue to closely oversee the remediation efforts of

the Census Bureau with respect to the Brooklyn count.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to give credit to the Census

Bureau and how they responded to the whistleblower allegations

we received concerning the Brooklyn Northeast office. They took

the issue seriously, they took prompt, corrective actions.

We’ve established what I view as an effective working relationship for addressing those problems that arise during the decennial,

whether those problems have come to light from our hotline or

through the observations our OIG staff has made through their

hundreds of field visits across the country.

That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I’m happy to respond to any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zinser follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Zinser, for your

comments.

Let me begin with you, Doctor. As I indicated, this has been an

area with a lot of problems in the past. I’m sure you are aware of

all the problems that happened back then, where the census office

was burned down, and other problems.

This has been an area that in every census, we have encountered

difficulties. And of course, a time to bring people from all over the

country to finish the count.

My question to you is, do we have enough time to do an accurate

count?

Mr. GROVES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We in this census, in

terms of the operations nationally, and I can say locally here, have

finished all of the various operations, about 11 in number, on

schedule and under budget.

We are now at a period where we are doing a lot of quality assurance work, and we still have people on the streets knocking on

doors for that purpose. I can assure you that all of the operations

we need to do the followup on any rework that we will discover,

we have discovered or will discover, we will finish those up at a

professional level, taking the time to do it right. We have the time.

Chairman TOWNS. I’m referring, actually, to the Brooklyn one.

Mr. GROVES. Yes, we have the time. The reworking on the first

problem that we encountered, the use of that Internet data, is already in progress. We’re really getting toward the end of that work.

That’s about 4,200 households, about 2 percent of the population

covered by this office; and we are really close to finishing that.

Chairman TOWNS. Mr. Zinser, how did you become informed that

there was a problem.

Mr. ZINSER. Sir, we maintain a hotline that is manned by OIG

staff. And calls came in to the hotline, they spoke to our agents

that this was happening. We have an established procedure for recording complaints that come in. And for the decennial census, once

we’ve recorded the complaints and our analysts have reviewed

what the callers were complaining about and identified it as a serious issue, through protocols we have established with the Census

Bureau, we forwarded that information to them and asked them to

investigate those allegations.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me ask this: When you know that an area

has had problems in the past, do you look to see if you can find

an experienced person to go in there? Better than that, how did you

get these people that created this problem? I’m talking to you, Dr.

Groves, and to Mr. Farthing.

Mr. GROVES. The personnel in question went through precisely

the same procedures that are done nationally. We advertise for

managerial positions in a lot of different ways, both in newspapers

and community meetings, fliers and job fairs, and also on USA

Jobs.

If I’m an applicant for a managerial position, I would complete

one of our application forms, I would take a test. I have to perform

on that test. I go through other evaluations and then we get a pool

of people qualified under those rules. Then we have staff interviewed by permanent Census Bureau staff and select a candidate

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based on that. That’s how these two individuals came to us. This

hiring progress was followed as we do throughout other offices.

Chairman TOWNS. There’s no system in place that would give

you an experienced person to go into an area that’s hard to count,

had the problems we’ve had the past? There’s no system in place?

Mr. GROVES. That’s part of the interview process. Maybe Tony

could mention in these cases how this was handled in these offices

that we are talking about.

Mr. FARTHING. One of the things that we do is, we look for individuals that meet the qualifications, No. 1. They can come in, they

have knowledge of the area. We look for individuals that actually

know the area enough to know what they are getting into in terms

of conducting a census.

We also look for individuals which we’re very fortunate to have

at times worked for us in the past, who understand the operations

and we feel they can come in, and actually perform at a level better

than someone new to the process. In the case for this particular office, we had an individual who actually worked for us before.

Chairman TOWNS. You are aware that this area had a lot of

problems in the past. Are you aware of that.

Mr. FARTHING. I live in the area, so I know; and I’ve worked

there for three decades. I know.

Chairman TOWNS. At this time I yield to the subcommittee chair,

the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. I’ll start with Dr. Groves. You mentioned that population counts that are not verifiable, that are popping up around

the country. And apparently you have a system in place that

alarms you or alerts you that some data is tainted or of some systemic glitch. And apparently, that system worked in this instance

also, where it came to you that, while I guess the whistleblower

system worked. Once you got into the data you also figured out

that it was contaminated.

Share with us how that worked.

Mr. GROVES. The first alert on this did come from office staff

members, and I share the borough president’s note that these are

courageous people that came forward, and we thank them for what

they did. They saw irregularities going on in the office. That kicked

off our internal investigation.

The irregularities they picked up were on cases that had not yet

been forwarded to the processing centers; we have three around the

country. It is our belief that if the whistleblower had not come forward, we would have caught some of those cases in the reinterviewing process. But I can’t prove that, since that isn’t how this

unfolded.

We have design procedures built in for quality assurance that

happen every time. Essentially, 100 percent of our enumerators

have had some of their work redone and checked, a double checking. This gives us some comfort nationally.

By the way, if you are asking what portion of those are we finding involved in some falsifications, it is 0.14 percent. It is a very

small percentage of the enumerators that we’re finding not following our training guidelines, and that’s some comfort nationally.

38

Nonetheless, this happened. We found out about it through the

courage of an office staff member who saw bad things happening

and reported it.

Mr. CLAY. What is the status of the two employees, the supervisor and assistant supervisor? Have they broken any laws?

Mr. ZINSER. Sir, the Census Bureau terminated those employees

on June 22nd, I believe. And they were able to do that promptly

because the census workers are temporary employees, and that

gives the Census Bureau the flexibility to make those determinations without the difficulty associated with personnel practices and

processes; so they were immediately terminated.

In terms of whether or not any laws were violated, we certainly

know that census procedures were violated. I think the question of

whether laws were violated should be left up to the U.S. Attorney’s

Office. I have satisfied my legal requirement to refer matters to the

U.S. Attorney’s Office. I have reasonable grounds to believe that

laws have been violated. So since I have reasonable grounds to believe they have been violated, I leave it up to the U.S. Attorney’s

Office to make that final call.

Mr. CLAY. Dr. Groves, anything to add to that?

Mr. GROVES. We at the Census Bureau are in full support of the

Inspector General’s actions in this matter.

Mr. CLAY. In comparison to the 2000 census for here in Brooklyn,

how does it compare to this year, as far as completion rates, mailin rates?

Mr. GROVES. I think Mr. Farthing is the best to answer.

Mr. FARTHING. In the Borough of Brooklyn alone, we’ve been, at

least this census, we’ve been very happy to see that the actual completion rate—we’re looking at two things. One is the participation

rate; and in the Borough of Brooklyn it did increase. And if you

look at some of the statistics that we have on our Web site, you

can see we track the areas that showed tremendous increase from

2000. We are very happy about that.

What that means, of course, we have to knock on fewer doors,

and have better data because people willingly respond to the census.

Mr. CLAY. If I looked on the Web site today, what percentage

would be counted in Brooklyn?

Mr. FARTHING. If you looked at the Web site today for Brooklyn,

the participation rate in 2005 was 52 percent; and for 2010, it went

up to 55 percent. The significance of that is that we’ve been really—in the past 10 years—in an environment where it’s been very

difficult to do survey type work and get the public to respond.

And so for the past 10 years, looking at the Borough of Brooklyn,

there have been many changes. I’m preaching to the choir, to our

representatives from Brooklyn. But we have a lot of immigrants in

Brooklyn, a lot of change, a lot of new housing; and a lot of folks,

of course, who are fearful about their status, of the environment.

To actually have people respond willingly would really indicate a

lower rate that we’re able to increase.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. The time has expired.

And now the chairman of the New York delegation, Charles B.

Rangel.

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Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Exactly what law is it, Mr. Zinser, that you referred this case to

the U.S. Attorney’s Office, that you believe was violated?

Mr. ZINSER. Sir, there are actually provisions in Title 13, a statute governing the Census Bureau. There are provisions in Title 13

that make it a felony to falsify census records.

Mr. RANGEL. Exactly how was this done? What was the actual

activity that had been violated under the law.

Mr. ZINSER. The Census Bureau procedures for recording census

information includes actually going out and interviewing respondents. And if they can’t get responses, then they have procedures for

what’s called ‘‘entering proxy information.’’ Those procedures do not

include the actions that were taken by the local census office manager and the assistant manager for field operations.

What we found, what the Census Bureau found, is that those

managers, instead of actually getting information from the residents or using proxy information according to their procedures, directed their employees to take data that was contained in a proprietary online data base and enter that on the census forms instead

of following procedures.

In my view, that provides me a reasonable grounds to believe

that provision of Title 13 was violated.

Mr. RANGEL. How many instances do you recall we’ve had in the

city of that nature, Mr. Farthing? In other words, just putting in

any information instead of getting the accurate information?

Mr. FARTHING. In this case, using a data base. Again, using a

data base that was not provided in our provision of procedures to

actually get the count. We wanted them to go out and knock on the

door and get information.

Mr. RANGEL. So they didn’t go out to get information themselves.

How many cases have been brought to your attention for the city

of New York? I want to get a feel for how widespread this is.

Mr. FARTHING. In my three decades of working here, I’ve never

had managers take that step, to order employees to actually do

what they ordered them to do. For me, this is the first time in my

working here that I’ve seen that.

Mr. RANGEL. This is the first time you’ve heard of the director

or the manager actually using arbitrary information instead of

going out and getting it.

Mr. FARTHING. Yes; first time.

Mr. RANGEL. We haven’t checked petitions yet, in terms of signatures people have gotten. [Laughter.]

You have done a better job, if this is the first time you have

heard of that. Let me say this. You’ve done an outstanding job.

This is a Constitutional requirement, and as the chairman pointed

out, it is so necessary that we preserve the integrity of this system,

so that others will avoid the temptation of avoiding doing the right

thing. I think you’ve done a great job.

I want to thank you on behalf of all of the community leaders

and elected officials, party officials, who you partnered with, in

order to get the accurate information in my borough.

Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

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Let me recognize the Congresswoman from the Borough of

Brooklyn, who’s part of the district affected by this, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke.

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you, Chairman Towns, Subcommittee Chairman Clay, for inviting me to sit in on this hearing regarding this

very pressing and important issue, which is affecting my district,

the Brooklyn community and the greater New York area.

I’d like to acknowledge my colleague Congressman Rangel, and

all the special guests joining us here today.

As the representative of the 11th Congressional District, I have

been diligently rallying with my constituents and my colleagues at

the State and local levels, so we can get fuller participation in the

census process. That’s why I’m very concerned about the recent incidents of fraud that have been discussed here this morning.

Like many of my colleagues in the New York congressional delegation, I represent a diverse constituency. According to the census

of 2005, and 2007, the American community surveyed, the year to

date estimates, the total population of my district is roughly

700,000 people.

Approximately 39 percent of this population are foreign born immigrants from all over the world. Approximately 47 percent of the

immigrant population settled in the community between 1980 and

2008, and has yet to obtain natural citizenship. They are legal permanent residents. Some have legal visa designation or are simply

undocumented.

This extremely vulnerable population is already concerned with

sharing private information with government entities, for fear of

compromising their immigration status.

Therefore, when incidents of fraud arise regarding census information, it is deeply troubling to both myself and my constituents,

because of the potential impact it has on fragile participation rates

altogether.

As a result, an accurate count of the residents in our district, the

integrity of the process and the direly needed resources to our districts become further compromised.

Moreover, since the incidents of fraud were exposed by an honest

employee, I’m concerned about the unknown rate of fraud that is

yet to be exposed.

It is my hope that this hearing, and it is my understanding, that

we are gaining insight in ways to mitigate the occurrence of fraud

for future censuses. The people of my district and Brooklyn heavily

rely on it.

So my first question is, one thing that I stressed in my community is the cost associated with not filling out a census form, or

when filled out indirectly or fraudulently.

Inspector General Zinser, do you have any knowledge of the cost

estimation associated with the re-enumeration process and that of

the approximate 4,221 cases that need to be reworked? And now

that there are issues with the re-enumeration, what are the compounds costs?

Mr. ZINSER. Thank you, Representative Clarke.

We have a rough estimate of how much it would cost to do a reenumeration; $16 a case, 4,221 cases identified, so roughly about

$50,000 that the fraud is actually going to cost the taxpayer.

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On the re-enumeration, on the problems with respect re-enumeration, I would probably let Dr. Groves discuss that; because I

don’t think the Census Bureau settled on exactly how it is going

to address that issue.

Mr. GROVES. I think it would be good first to describe how we

identify what cases needed to be redone; because we tried to do—

actually, what you said, Congresswoman, is exactly what we said

in our meeting. How do we know how widespread this is? How are

we going to find out what actually happened? And then, when we

find the cases that are damaged, how are we going to rework them?

And we did this—the one benefit of modern technology is that we

have large computer files that processed data already, and we’re

using those to try to find other cases. The fact that we had computer logs that listed every inquiry, every query to this data base,

allowed us to zoom in on the cases queried. And we are redoing

every one of those.

And then we’re redoing others around there that are suspicious.

So we are actually redoing more work than we think was actually

affected, but we ought to make double sure that we got it right;

and that sums up to the 4,200 number of cases. And we used an

independent set of interviewers. I think that’s very important; people that were not involved with the original work at all, and sent

them out.

Ms. CLARKE. What do you estimate the cost to be?

Mr. GROVES. My estimates are a little higher than my colleagues.

So we don’t know exactly, first of all. We’ve been using the figures

of roughly doing an interview cost, about $57 per household. We

have about 4,000 cases; and I’m getting something closer to a quarter million dollars for this repair effort.

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman

Clarke. First of all, if not for the whistleblowers, would your policy

control pick up this?

Mr. GROVES. To be absolutely honest, we won’t know; because we

caught it early. My professional judgment is that we would have

seen irregularities through our normal quality control procedures.

It would have taken a couple of weeks, and then we would have

caught it.

Chairman TOWNS. I listened very carefully this morning. I notice,

in terms of the question raised by Chairman Clay, about the participation rate. And you indicated that it increased from 52 to 55.

I’m trying to be impressed, but I’m having difficulty, because that

still leaves 45 percent of our residents that are not being counted.

Help me. I’m trying to find a positive thing here.

Mr. GROVES. It is very important to understand what that number means.

Chairman TOWNS. Please help me.

Mr. GROVES. We mailed out to large numbers of households the

paper mail questionnaire. Our best estimate at this point in the

borough, is that 55 percent of the occupied units returned that

form. What all that means is that we are going to knock on 45 percent of the doors. And we followed up on every one of those addresses that didn’t fill out the form and mail it back.

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To be good stewards of the taxpayer’s money, we thought that

100 percent would have returned the form. But we don’t stop at the

mail portion; that’s just the beginning of the process we are still

finishing up here in Brooklyn, of knocking on every door that did

not return it.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me turn to you, Mr. Zinser. Have you seen

any complaints on whistleblowers, in terms of repercussions in any

way in your years of experience? Any retaliation.

Mr. ZINSER. In this case, we haven’t seen retaliation. We spoke

to the folks who filed the complaints. They were appreciative of our

actions, the Census Bureau’s actions. They didn’t indicate any type

of retaliation.

One thing that’s happening with the census right now, we’re

starting to reduce staffing levels. So people are getting laid off, and

that’s going to, in our view, probably increase the number of complaints that come in; because people who aren’t going be afraid of

retaliation will blow the whistle.

At the same time, we have our antennae up for allegations coming, in that people may claim to have been retaliated against to try

to save their jobs.

Chairman TOWNS. How many whistleblower complaints do you

get nationally.

Mr. ZINSER. From the start, October 1, 2009, we’ve gotten between 650 and 700.

Chairman TOWNS. How many followups, and what happened.

Mr. ZINSER. All of them have been paid attention to. We sent

probably 400 or so to the Census Bureau for action. We are investigating or have investigated about 40 of those, and probably there

are 100 to 150 that, after we have reviewed them, the information

wasn’t specific enough or the issues they were complaining about

wasn’t substantial enough to initiate a review. We did what we call

‘‘zero file,’’ keep them on file in case we get information in the future of the same nature.

Chairman TOWNS. On that same line of questions, how many

would you just send to the Census Bureau and how many send to

the U.S. attorney.

Mr. ZINSER. The issue of sending to the U.S. attorney, I believe

this is the first case we have actually referred in 2010 to the U.S.

Attorney’s Office. There was a case in 2000 that was referred to the

U.S. attorney down in Florida.

Chairman TOWNS. My time has expired. I yield to the gentleman

from St. Louis, Mr. Clay, Chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much.

Dr. Groves, do you think that the local census offices’ deadlines

are so strict that they increase the chances that other employees

will take unacceptable shortcuts like this.

Mr. GROVES. That’s a great question, and it’s one I think about

a lot. One of the things that managers face mobilizing about

600,000 enumerators is, who are temporary employees, is to balance the desire to finish the work expeditiously and thoroughly,

and then to avoid cutting corners.

This is a tough management job with temporary employees, because many of them, when they finish the job, they lose that source

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of income. And it requires great wisdom to balance between deadlines and cutting corners appropriately.

One technique some offices use, and was used here I know, is

that at a certain point in the completion of the work, to gather the

work back up into the central office to redistribute it to be done effectively by a smaller work force.

I have looked for rushing, evidence of rushing. I can’t find it systematically. We’re worried about it, we talk about it a lot in the

central office to make sure we’re not rushing. And I haven’t found

the evidence that we are pushing people so hard that they are cutting corners.

Mr. CLAY. So you have not seen, Mr. Farthing, any evidence of

pressure to meet deadlines? Cases like this to occur.

Mr. FARTHING. Keeping in mind that, as Dr. Groves said, the

number of people we have to hire, the infrastructure and various

layers, our managers are responsible for, again, making sure that

everyone that we give work to is working effectively with what we

call good time management.

For some, they may feel rushed. Some folks maybe aren’t as well

in time management. We have to take action if that’s the case. And

then we have others who seem to work fine within the timeframe

we allow everybody to get the work done.

As Dr. Groves said, the process of bringing the work in and back

in after a certain period of time, everybody we feel has a comfortable cushion to get their initial assignment done. We have to

bring work back in at some point to make sure that those still out

there working are making effective use of the time by going out to

visit households at an appropriate time.

I think it’s well known that our community, especially in Brooklyn, everybody’s not out of the home from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We have

a lot of folks who don’t come home until 8 or 9 p.m., who are working more than one job. So we have to make sure that the employees

that we have get out of that mindset, that they are actually going

out to get very difficult cases at a time that we think people will

be at home.

Mr. CLAY. I want to ask about Brooklyn in particular. Is it difficult to get into these large apartment complexes, with the doors

locked and getting access to these high rises.

Mr. FARTHING. I would tell you that Brooklyn and Manhattan,

closely followed by Queens, are the toughest places to do the census

in the country. They always are difficult.

Congresswoman Clarke, your office has helped me. For example,

we have buildings, some are wealthy buildings, where the management will not allow us in for the census. By law, they’re supposed

to let us in. Congresswoman, I don’t know what you did, but we

got in there; a phone call or what.

Mr. CLAY. She’s awfully persuasive.

Mr. FARTHING. I appreciate it. We have other issues where Congressman Towns knows, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, we have the famous apartments above the store. And there’s no doorbell, there’s

nothing. The only way is to stand outside and wait until somebody

might come home, or maybe the store owner below comes home; a

very, very difficult place to conduct a census.

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Aside from that, Congresswoman, I appreciate what you said.

The reality we to have to face in Brooklyn, especially immigrants

and those that are undocumented, pose a lot of problems for us.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Zinser, last question. These managers used an online information resource called ‘‘Fast Data’’ to complete questionnaires instead of conducting personal interviews. Can you describe how to

use this data, this FastData online? You or Dr. Groves?

Mr. ZINSER. Yes, sir. Basically, what we looked at was its use in

the local census offices. And there is a division in the office between those who are actually overseeing the operations and actually going out and knocking on doors.

For those doing quality assurance with FastData access, or having access to the FastData, it was supposed to have been limited

to the quality assurance staffer; so that the quality assurance staffer, they go through the work done on the other side of the house,

and have some information to match that against locally.

What happened in this case is that the area manager of field operations switched from the quality assurance side of the house,

where they had access to FastData, over to the operations side; and

they maintained or kept their password to data and used it for this

purpose.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Dr. Groves.

Mr. GROVES. Let me just add one note. You might ask, why use

it at all? And there’s a very narrow use prescribed. On these cases

that are designated to be reinterviewed for quality control purposes, we’ve found it efficient to sometimes do those by telephone.

We save the taxpayers a lot of money.

So the only prescribed use of this data is that—let’s say there’s

a house to reinterview on 123 Main Street, Apartment 1; I would

type that into FastData. If there’s a phone number there for that

address, then we conduct the reinterview by telephone, saving everybody some money.

That’s the only use it’s prescribed for under the training guidelines. This office and these managers violated that.

Chairman TOWNS. I recognize the gentlewoman from Brooklyn.

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One problem was a question raised by Congressman Clay. My

question is, what other information can be found on the system, on

the FastData system, other than addresses and telephone numbers?

Mr. GROVES. This is a data base that resembles a lot of commercially assembled data bases this year. It has a list of names of people, and then an estimated set of years that they may have lived

at that address. For some of the people, there’s a phone number attached to it.

In my prior life before being a Census Bureau Director, I examined these types of data bases. They are filled with erroneous data

and sometimes helpful data. It isn’t clear how the year—these data

are obtained from a lot of different sources, driver’s licenses all

sorts of things.

Ms. CLARKE. Are you saying that you can get someone’s driver’s

license number.

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Mr. GROVES. No, you can’t. All you can get is a sense of names

attached to this address from some record system; and that’s all

that was there. About every 10th person you have a date of birth

on the person’s record. It’s filled with a lot of missing data, too.

Ms. CLARKE. No Social Security number.

Mr. GROVES. No Social Security numbers.

Ms. CLARKE. Dr. Groves, my followup question is: What is the

procedure when employees who work in quality assurance are promoted or transferred out of the division? Are passwords supposed

to be changed and access restricted? And how was it that the

former AMQA in question was able to retain her access privileges?

Mr. GROVES. I think Tony should best answer that.

Mr. FARTHING. There’s two things: Why have you taken the action taken? We felt it’s a very serious matter. Whenever anyone accesses FastData on our computers, or is given access in the first

place, we actually have the rules and regulations and also the penalties behind it. It clearly instructs them they’re not to use it for

any other purposes but for quality assurance and administrative

action to be taken. If they violate that, which was the case was

here. The error on our part was that we did not—when this person

was moved over, she continued to have her password, and her password rights were not taken away.

Ms. CLARKE. Is that typically what happens, though. Is there an

expiration on an individual’s password? They’re no longer in that

division, transferred, promoted moved to another division of the

census? Is there an expiration on the password? What happens?

Mr. FARTHING. Based on our findings, Congresswoman, nationally, all of our offices get a very thorough review of who has access,

who should have access, who should not have access. And so we

have lots of people now who no longer have access to this, based

on the findings of what happened, taking corrective action.

Mr. GROVES. It’s clear that going forward we can tighten this. We

tightened it now. In retrospect, we have to clamp down.

Mr. ZINSER. Congressman, I haven’t done that at the Commerce

Department, though we did it at a former department where I

worked. The idea of people—whether they’re employees or contractors or temporary employees—having access to computer systems

through their passwords, after they leave employment is a big

issue, and one that we probably need to look at governmentwide,

because people keep access when they shouldn’t.

Ms. CLARKE. I hope that we will.

My final question to you, Inspector General Zinser, in your testimony you mentioned the need to clarify the census definition of

‘‘status,’’ with regard to last resort cases.

Has the Census Bureau taken any steps to clarify the ambiguity

surrounding this for the 2010 census? And if so, has it been standardized in order to mitigate any further misunderstanding by enumerators across the country?

Mr. ZINSER. Congresswoman, I don’t know the specific answer. I

know that except for here in Brooklyn, the enumeration is virtually

completed. I don’t know if the re-enumeration guidelines are really

being used anywhere else, but I’ll have to let Dr. Groves respond.

Mr. GROVES. As soon as we diagnose this—our regional directors

have a conference call every day about 2 p.m., I think. The word

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went out quickly to redouble the instructions about how to handle

these sorts of cases.

We also did queries back about whether there were any other

pockets that people knew about of these abuses; and then we’re

doing a computer search to find them. We are able—the good thing

this is, we’re able to diagnose and identify these cases. Given our

data files, that’s what we’re doing very actively. I don’t have the

results yet, but we’re on it.

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman

Clarke.

Let me ask the question: You indicated that Brooklyn was one

of the hardest areas to count. Is there any extra compensation or

additional workers be put in an area like that? I’m just wondering

if there’s pressure to make them do the funny things they’ve done

over the years in this particular region?

Mr. GROVES. Tony can comment on the salary and the operations

and how the operations are designed. That might be the best way

to address your question.

Mr. FARTHING. In Brooklyn, actually all of New York City, we

pay among the highest pay rates for the census in the country. And

that’s for not only our census takers, but also for the managers

that we hire in all of our offices.

It does take on my part and my staff, we really do have to go

out and do very heavy recruiting, specialized recruiting to find the

right type of individuals. I’ve been to all of your offices to ask help

for us. Congresswoman Clarke, you answered our call. We came to

find out good people to take this job and describe what the job was,

and just how difficult it was going to be. We do pay, I think, well.

But it’s just a very tough place to conduct the census.

Chairman TOWNS. Now that we have this problem, will they

need extra time to do the count, or can we still meet the schedule

in the end of July?

Mr. GROVES. I am quite confident that the scheduling for the

next operations and the ability to react to anything we haven’t

found for redo work is sufficient to do a great job over the coming

weeks.

Chairman TOWNS. The way it is structured, you think this creates a problem for you? For instance, if a person knows that ‘‘Once

I finish this count I’m unemployed.’’ That sort of, ‘‘I’m working myself out of a job.’’

It reminds me of what the lady at the airport the other day said

to me when I asked questions about bags being checked. She said,

‘‘Why would I help you? If you learn how to do this, then I’ll lose

my job.’’

So the point is, I’m thinking in terms of, if they finish counting,

then they’re unemployed. That’s not an incentive to finish.

Mr. GROVES. That’s correct. I’ve tried to express the same managerial challenge in the earlier question. This, Mr. Chairman, is endemic to how surveys and censuses work. We often rely on temporary staff. Our management procedures have built in ways of addressing that as best we can, but we cannot deny the emotional reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:29 Feb 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63037.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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action of one of our workers, knowing that upon completion they

will lose a source of income.

We try to address that by gathering up work and redistributing

and so on; but the fact of the matter cannot be denied. That is a

tension in managing these operations.

Chairman TOWNS. Dr. Groves, I must admit I have great admiration and respect for you. This is a tough job. This is not an easy

job. When you see how it’s structured and what you called upon a

person to do within a certain timeframe—you too, Mr. Farthing—

the fact that you have one of the toughest areas in the country to

count.

And of course, I want to let you know that I recognize it’s not

easy. That’s the reason why we want to have this hearing, to try

to do whatever we can to help you.

I yield again to the committee chair, the gentleman from St.

Louis, MO, Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to say how

honored I am to come to a hearing here in Brooklyn and to engage

with my colleagues, Congresswoman Clarke, as well, and Congressman Towns and Congressman Rangel in this hearing.

You know, it seems as though we struggle so every 10 years with

the census. People in the audience indicate that they are not as

pleased as they could be with the results of the census. But from

my perch, I’m confident that this will be one of the most accurate

censuses that we conduct in the history of this country, because of

the leadership.

Let me ask Dr. Groves or Mr. Farthing, How has the re-enumeration of these 10,000 forms gone? Is it pretty much complete,

or——

Mr. FARTHING. As of the end of the weekend, we’re about 80 percent complete on that work. Just to kind of reassure you of what

we have done; we’ve broadened the team from my office and offices

nearby, some of our best workers to oversee this and make sure it’s

done right.

If we see irregularities, again, as Dr. Groves said, in our processes, checking and reviewing work, then we basically take care of

the problem and go back out to make sure it’s done properly. But

I would say it’s such a small amount of work we’re working on

compared to what we had initially when we started out on this; so

it’s just a matter of getting the right people who are very experienced to get out there and get the job done.

Mr. CLAY. In a related question or concern: How are the clerks

that were instructed or ordered by the manager or assistant manager to taint this data, how are they doing? Are they pretty much

readjusted or still in place.

Mr. FARTHING. Yes. There’s no retaliation. I think as Dr. Groves

said, we’re very grateful to them for speaking up. As Dr. Groves

said, if they didn’t speak up, we would have had to detect this work

much later in the process. But they spoke up quickly, and that enabled us to take care of problem right when the work was in the

office and we could really address it right then and there. So we

are very happy with those individuals and there was no retaliation

by any means.

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Mr. CLAY. As Chairman Towns mentioned at the beginning of

the hearing, Brooklyn has had a history of difficulties when it

comes to the census. We know it only occurs every 10 years. I was

not aware that there was an office that was burned 20 years ago.

Apparently, it must be somewhat unique for Brooklyn, and I

guess you have to prepare for that at the beginning of each census.

And I assume you were ready for instances likes this or something

similar?

Mr. FARTHING. Our motto in my office is ‘‘Prepare for the unexpected,’’ and Brooklyn seems to always put us in that position. I’m

happy that in 2000 we had a very good census in Brooklyn. We

didn’t have a lot of issues or anything come up like we’ve had right

now and the 1980 census, for example.

But as I said earlier, it’s a very difficult job and you’re dealing

with all walks of life; and you have to be prepared for a very diverse community here in Brooklyn. You have to actually have great

knowledge behind the neighborhoods, your hirees you’re bringing

into the office. And you have to have a lot of cultural sensitivity.

It’s a very tough job to blend the elements together and deploy

workers and make sure that everybody is doing what they are

asked to do, and so the challenges are great. To be up for the task,

my job is to find people who can actually go out and help manage

in the effort.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Farthing for your response and Dr.

Groves and their responses. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you.

I yield to the Brooklyn Congresswoman.

Any additional questions?

Ms. CLARKE. Just a final statement, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Farthing, I think I concur with the chairman when he talks

about just incremental changes in the response rate here in Brooklyn. I understand why you would find it to be a great thing.

On the other hand, those of us who live in Brooklyn and who rely

on the resource that is important to bear as a result of enumerating the population, it still remains disappointing.

My question to you is, how does Brooklyn rate in its response

rate to other similar environments across the Nation? Other urban,

heavily populated areas?

Mr. FARTHING. The Borough of Queens had a 56 percent response

rate in 2000; and they went up 3 percentage points to 59 percent.

Queens has much more difficulty now with the increase of the immigrant population.

The Bronx is about 57 percent. It went up in 2000 up to 62 percent. Manhattan, typically, is a little bit higher. They were 62 percent in 2000 and went up to 67 percent. Staten Island was 64 percent in 2000, 64 percent again.

Staten Island has become more difficult now, as folks from

Brooklyn moved over to the North Shore. It’s unfortunate for the

census that you have to understand what happens over 10 years

to your communities.

And for Brooklyn, what you don’t get like in other communities

where you have folks born in this country and they understand the

census and there’s a lot of civic pride—I’d probably yield to the

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Congressman from Missouri. I’d love to have the same characteristics, it would be easy to do a census.

But the city of New York is the greatest challenge of all to do

the census. I am pleased when I see that there are increases in response rates. What’s disturbing is when I see response rates go

down. That’s most alarming.

Ms. CLARKE. Dr. Groves, is it at all possible to provide us information about how we rate with other urban environments around

the Nation? I would be very interested in finding that out; simply,

because I think you put your finger on the pulse of it, Mr. Farthing.

We need a strategy to deal with immigrant populations, a very

examined strategy for the 2020 census. New York City is the gateway for immigrants; an it has been since the beginning of time. I

think it will be for many generations to come. And I don’t think

it is acceptable for us not to look at this, knowing it’s indicative of

this particular area and not come up with a very specific remedy

and strategy to address it.

It may need an awareness campaign that begins even before—

before we get to the point of even discussing the next census. But

I think that our city suffers because we don’t get as accurate a

count as we need to. And by extension, our State suffers, because

the heaviest population of individuals in the State of New York reside in the city of New York.

I just wanted to put that on your radar. I’d love to get that information. I think you’ve got a lot of work to do going forward. I am

pleased to see that there has been an increase. My district in 2000

had an abysmal 33 percent response rate. I applaud my colleagues

at the State and local level who stayed the course, and we worked

together to make sure that we raised the numbers. But I’m not satisfied yet.

And so Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Subcommittee Chairman, I want

to thank you for holding this hearing right here in Brooklyn so we

can put a lot of our concerns to rest; but also looking for what we

need to do going forward, strengthen our ability here in Brooklyn.

Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Yvette

Clarke.

I’m delighted to see we have with us District Leader Brown,

who’s working very hard to help get information out to communities. And State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, who worked

very hard with us in terms of getting the message out to people

about how important it is to be counted.

Let me say in closing to Dr. Groves and Mr. Farthing in particular: Please do not rush through and go to the FastData. Let’s try

to make certain that we get extra people in here to continue this

count. We want to make this as accurate as possible. This is something we won’t see again for another 10 years. And, of course,

that’s a lot of suffering of people if we don’t get an accurate count.

So whatever is necessary to get out a response rate and to be

able to get an accurate count, if it requires elected officials going

door to door and knocking on doors to help you get in, we are prepared to make that kind of commitment to you, that’s how important it is.

50

Because there are so many things riding on this accurate count;

in terms of money for housing, money for food stamps, money for

education. All of these things are riding on this count. So this is

something that we do not take lightly.

This is very, very important to us, and I want you to know the

commitment across the board with elected officials discussing it

over and over again, that is the reason why we want to have this

hearing here, to let you know we stand ready to work with you, to

do whatever is necessary to be able to get it right.

I know that we’re running out of time. The point is that instead

of running out of time, it’s about running out to see how many people we can get to come in from wherever to be able to make this

an accurate count.

Thank you so much for your work, and I realize it’s not easy. The

point is it’s just so important.

And Dr. Groves, I want to thank you and I know you’ve been out

of the office on several occasions. I want you to know you might

have to come back again.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Zinser, and I want to thank you

for all of the work you have done.

And I want to thank my colleagues, Representative Clay, who

came all the way from Missouri to be here, to be able to take it

back to the committee he chairs, to be able to help us and be able

to do whatever is necessary to get an accurate count.

And my colleague who comes from the same district that I have,

who recognizes how important it is to be able to get an accurate

count. So I want to thank Congresswoman Yvette Clarke for her

work and, of course, effort.

And I want to thank Congressman B. Rangel, who came across

the bridge to be over here today. [Laughter.]

It’s a long trip from Harlem to Brooklyn. Also, to try to point out

how important it is to get an accurate count. Thank you so much

for your participation. We look forward to working with you to

make certain that we get it right.

Thank you, Mr. Farthing, Mr. Zinser, Dr. Groves.

At this time the committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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