GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

August 2001 2000 CENSUS

Review of Partnership 

Program Highlights 

Best Practices for 

Future Operations

GAO-01-579

Page i GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Scope and Methodology 5

Background 6

Financial and Human Capital Dedicated to the Partnership

Program 8

Partnering Decisions and Logo Use Were Governed by Unwritten

Guidelines and Criteria 14

The Bureau’s Database for Tracking the Partnership Program Had

Shortcomings 17

The Bureau Plans to Evaluate and Continue the Partnership

Program 18

Best Practices for Forging Productive Partnerships 19

Conclusions 29

Recommendations for Executive Action 30

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 31

Appendix I Comments From the Secretary of Commerce 34

Appendix II GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 40

Tables

Table 1: Number of Full-time Equivalents for the Partnership

Program 11

Figures

Figure 1: Stickers Purchased by the City of Alhambra for Census

2000 Promotion Purchased With Bureau In-Kind Funds 9

Figure 2: The Bureau’s Logo as Downloaded From Its Web Site 15

Figure 3: Census Partnerships Best Practices Checklist 20

Figure 4: Detroit Billboard Showing Political Figures’ Support of

the Census 21

Figure 5: Logo Developed by the Wyoming Census Task Force for

Census 2000 Promotion 22

Figure 6: Korean Senior Center Banner With Tailored Census 2000

Questionnaire Assistance Center Logo 25

Contents
Page ii GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Page 1 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

August 20, 2001

The Honorable Henry A. Waxman

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

The Honorable Dan Miller

Chairman

The Honorable William Lacy Clay, Jr.

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on the Census

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney

House of Representatives

To take a more complete and accurate count of the nation’s population in

the 2000 Census, the Bureau of the Census partnered with other federal

agencies, as well as with state, local, and tribal governments; religious,

community, and social service organizations; and private businesses.

According to the Bureau, about 140,000 organizations participated in the

partnership program, assisting in such critical activities as reviewing and

updating the Bureau’s address list; encouraging people—especially hardto-count populations—to participate in the census; and recruiting

temporary census employees. The program stemmed from the Bureau’s

recognition that a successful head count required the local knowledge,

experience, and expertise that these organizations provide. The Bureau

expects the program will play a key role in the 2010 Census, as well as a

number of the Bureau’s nondecennial surveys in the years to come.

Although a more complete picture of the results of the partnership

program will not be available until the Bureau completes several ongoing

evaluations of the effort, thus far, the program has generally received

broad support. The Bureau and members of Congress have cited the role

that partners have played in boosting public awareness of the census,

while in our prior work, we noted that the Bureau aggressively pursued

partnerships with local governments, community groups, and other

organizations to help ensure a complete and accurate population count.

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548
Page 2 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

As discussed with your offices, we reviewed the 2000 Census partnership

program, paying particular attention to (1) the financial and human capital

the Bureau dedicated to the 2000 Census partnership effort, (2) the

Bureau’s guidelines governing partnering decisions and use of the

Bureau’s Census 2000 logo, and (3) the Bureau’s tracking system used to

monitor partnership engagements and measure performance. Moreover,

given the Bureau’s efforts to institutionalize the partnership program, you

asked us to describe the Bureau’s plans and to identify best practices and

lessons learned from the 2000 Census for forging constructive partnership

engagements that the Bureau can use to inform those plans. This report is

one of several we will be issuing in the coming months on lessons learned

from the 2000 Census that can help inform the planning effort for 2010.

According to Bureau data, from October 1997, when the Bureau began

staffing partnership positions, through September 2000, the Bureau spent

about $142.9 million on its partnership program. This is about 2 percent of

the estimated $6.5 billion the Bureau allocated for the census, and an

average of about $1.19 for each of the 120 million households that the

Bureau estimates compose the nation. Of the $142.9 million, $65.1 million

(46 percent) was spent on salaries and benefits. The remainder included

nonpayroll expenditures such as travel, training, supplies, and postage.

The Bureau also included about $14 million of “in-kind” funding to back

local partners’ efforts to support the census. Partners could apply for

awards of up to $2,499 to purchase such promotional items as stickers,

banners, and flyers. The money was not given directly to partners. Instead,

the Bureau’s regional census centers purchased the items directly from

vendors on the partners’ behalf. However, the Bureau did not have data on

how many awards were given, whom the awards were given to, the

amount of these awards, and what the awards were spent on. This

information is important for accountability purposes as well as for

managing and assessing the effectiveness of the effort. Moreover, the lack

of information is inconsistent with federal internal control standards,

which require transactions to be recorded in a timely and accurate manner

and be readily available for examination.1

The Bureau staffed the partnership program with 594 full-time positions.

Of these, 560 positions were allocated to the field, while the remaining

 1

Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1,

November 1999).

Results in Brief
Page 3 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

slots were located in the Bureau’s headquarters. The number of

partnership positions in 2000 was more than triple the 181 positions filled

in 1990. However, partnership staff in 2000 were more thinly spread as

they were responsible for working with many more local groups in 2000

compared to 1990. Local census office managers we surveyed expressed

concern that the partnership staffs’ heavy workload may have affected the

support they were able to provide. Partnership specialists we interviewed

generally did not share this view, but they did report the need for more

clerical support. Local census office managers also said the reporting

structure for partnership specialists, in which partnership specialists

reported directly to a regional partnership coordinator, rather than to the

local census office manager, may have led to communication and

coordination hurdles between the partnership staff and the local census

office. Headquarters officials explained that this structure was chosen so

that partnership specialists could coordinate their efforts and maintain a

consistent national census campaign message.

According to Bureau officials, decisions on which organizations to partner

with and what events to attend were governed by unwritten guidelines and

criteria. These decisions were driven by the Bureau’s desire to collaborate

with virtually any organization that would support the census, particularly

groups with unique demographic and other characteristics of the regions.

The Bureau also made the census logo available on its Internet site, and

encouraged partners to use the logo to help promote the census. However,

the Bureau did not have any written guidance on how partners could

characterize their association with the Bureau or what constituted

appropriate use of the Bureau’s Census 2000 logo. This lack of written

guidance thus raised the risk that (1) the Bureau might partner with

organizations that could generate perceptual or other problems because

their nature or actions were inconsistent with those of the census or

(2) partners might misrepresent their association with the Bureau.

The Bureau has since prepared written guidelines for making decisions on

partnership engagements. However, the guidelines fall short in that they

still do not address how partners may (1) characterize their association

with the Bureau and (2) use the Bureau’s logo. The lack of guidelines

governing use of the Bureau’s logo is at odds with federal internal control

standards that require agencies to establish control over assets vulnerable

to unauthorized use.2

 2

GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.
Page 4 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Although the Bureau developed a monitoring system for tracking,

planning, and analyzing partnership efforts throughout the nation, it was

not fully tested before it went operational because of time constraints. As

a result, a number of shortcomings went undetected until the system was

implemented. Bureau headquarters staff said the system was slow,

cumbersome, and difficult to keep current. Because of these difficulties,

the Bureau had limited real-time data on the status of agreements with

thousands of partners and was unable to fully monitor the extent to which

partners fulfilled their commitments. The system’s shortcomings also led

to inefficiencies and duplication of effort in the partnership program. For

example, some partnership specialists kept separate partnership tracking

systems. The Bureau has developed a new tracking system called Prisms

to address the problems it encountered with its initial system.

With respect to its future plans for the partnership program, for fiscal year

2001, the Bureau has budgeted $5.4 million to support a series of

workshops for partners and other interested parties on how to access and

use census data. For the longer term, the Bureau plans to continue

working with partners to help conduct its ongoing demographic and

economic surveys and begin initial preparations for the 2010 Census. In

addition, the Bureau expects to release the results of its evaluation of the

partnership program, which should shed light on the program’s overall

impact and assess how the partnership efforts affected different

populations and census operations as well as the adequacy of its

partnership staffing levels. This information should help the Bureau as it

moves ahead with plans to institutionalize the partnership program and

prepares for the next national head count in 2010.

Our observations during the 2000 Census highlighted some best practices

that appeared to be key to successful partnership engagements. It will be

important for the Bureau to explore these and other best practices to help

refine the partnership program and enhance its effectiveness. As shown in

figure 3, best practices for partners include (1) identifying “census

champions” that is, people who will actively support the census and

encourage others to do so, (2) integrating census-related efforts into

partners’ existing activities and events, and (3) leveraging resources by

working with other partners and customizing census promotional

materials to better resonate with local populations. For the Bureau, best

practices include (1) providing adequate and timely information, guidance,

and other resources to local partners on how they can support the census,

(2) maintaining open communication with partners, and (3) encouraging

the early involvement of partners in census activities.
Page 5 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Overall, it appears as though key census-taking activities, such as

encouraging people to return their questionnaires, would have been less

successful had it not been for the Bureau’s partnership efforts. Thus, given

the important role that partners are expected to play in future Bureau

activities, we recommend that the Secretary of Commerce ensure that the

Bureau takes steps to make the partnership program more accountable

and performance-oriented. These steps include (1) completing its

evaluation of the partnership program as planned and using the

information to help determine its cost-effectiveness and how best to

allocate program resources, (2) documenting in-kind funding expenditures

and maintaining proper accounting in accordance with federal internal

control standards, (3) exploring ways to increase communication and

coordination between partnership staff and local census managers,

(4) reviewing partnership staffing levels to make sure that the levels are

sufficient to ensure the adequate provision of Bureau support to partners,

(5) developing regulations specifying how organizations may characterize

their association with the Bureau and use the Bureau’s logo, while

providing for needed flexibility, and (6) ensuring that the Bureau’s new

partnership tracking system functions as an effective management tool.

To review the financial and human capital that the Bureau dedicated to the

partnership program and the Bureau’s guidelines governing partnering

decisions and use of its Census 2000 logo, we interviewed relevant Bureau

managers in both headquarters and the field and examined Bureau

documents that described the partnership program’s goals, budget, and

decision-making processes.

To identify partnership best practices, we interviewed local government

and community partners, as well as other stakeholders, in four locations

across the country that either we or the Bureau identified as examples of

constructive partnership programs because they had specific

characteristics. These characteristics included (1) an active local or

regional partnership effort, (2) an initial census mail response rate that

was favorable when compared to the nation as a whole or to the location’s

1990 response rate, and (3) populations the Bureau considered hard to

enumerate. In addition, the sites we selected were geographically and

demographically diverse, and included a large urban area (Los Angeles

County), a mostly rural state (Wyoming), a medium-size city (Detroit), and

three Native American tribes (the Lumbee and Tuscarora tribes in

Robeson County, North Carolina, and the Catawba tribe in South

Carolina). To obtain the Bureau’s perspective on these engagements, as

part of these visits, we met with partnership staff from 16 local census

Scope and

Methodology
Page 6 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

offices and with officials at the Bureau’s Regional Census Centers in

Charlotte, N.C.; Denver; Detroit; and Los Angeles. Our findings cannot be

projected to the partnership program as a whole.

We also included the initial results of our survey of a stratified random

sample of 250 local census office managers in which we obtained

responses from 236 managers (about a 94 percent overall response rate).

The survey—which asked local census office managers about the

implementation of a number of key field operations—can be generalized

to the 511 local census offices located in the 50 states. All reported

percentages are estimates based on the sample and are subject to some

sampling error as well as nonsampling error. In general, percentage

estimates in this report for the entire sample have confidence intervals

ranging from about ± 4 to ± 5 percentage points at the 95-percent

confidence interval. In other words, if all local census office managers in

our population had been surveyed, the chances are 95 out of 100 that the

result obtained would not differ from our sample estimate in the more

extreme cases by more than ± 5 percent.

We did our audit work at the case study locations in June and July 2000,

and at the Bureau’s headquarters in Suitland, Md., from February 2000

through May 2001. Our work was done in accordance with generally

accepted government auditing standards.

We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Secretary of

Commerce. On July 17, 2001, the Secretary forwarded the Bureau’s written

comments on the draft (see app. I), which we address at the end of this

report. The Bureau generally agreed with, or recognized the value of, our

seven recommendations.

To improve participation in the 2000 Census and to mobilize support for

other census operations, the Bureau partnered with state, local, and tribal

governments as well as religious, media, educational, and other

community organizations. The partnership program stemmed from the

Bureau’s recognition that local people know the characteristics of their

communities better than the Census Bureau and therefore know the best

ways to communicate with their constituents to ensure they are counted.

To coordinate local partners’ efforts, the Bureau encouraged government

entities to form Complete Count Committees, which were to be made up

of representatives of these local groups. The Bureau also established

partnerships with national organizations such as the Mexican American

Background
Page 7 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People, the National Congress of American

Indians, and the American Association of Retired Persons. In addition, the

Bureau partnered with private companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and

the United Parcel Service.

The Bureau depended on partners to help conduct a number of census

operations. Among other contributions, partners helped recruit over 3.7

million temporary census workers from March 1997 through September

2000, reviewed and updated census maps and address lists, provided space

and volunteers for Questionnaire Assistance Centers and for testing

census job applicants, organized promotional events, and motivated

individuals to complete their census forms.

In addition, for the first time ever, the Bureau instituted a paid-advertising

campaign led by Young and Rubicam, a private sector advertising firm.

The campaign included both national and local census advertising, and

was intended to increase mail returns from the general public, targeted

audiences, and historically undercounted populations.

As part of its larger study of the outreach and promotion program, the

Bureau is examining the impact that the partnership program had on

public awareness and participation. The Bureau achieved an initial mail

response rate of about 64 percent, 3 percentage points higher than it had

anticipated when planning for nonresponse follow-up. This was a

noteworthy accomplishment in light of the challenges the Bureau faced in

publicizing the census and, as a result, the Bureau had over 3 million fewer

housing units to follow up with than it had initially planned. However,

initial Bureau data on the postcensus mail return rate—which is a more

precise indicator of public cooperation—was 72 percent, a decline of 2

percentage points from the 74 percent mail return rate the Bureau

achieved in 1990 (the Bureau’s figures are preliminary and subject to

verification upon receipt of final data).

The initial mail response rate is calculated as a percentage of all forms in

the mailback universe from which the Bureau received a questionnaire. It

factors in housing units that are discovered to be nonexistent or

unoccupied during nonresponse follow-up. The Bureau uses this

percentage as an indicator of its nonresponse follow-up workload. This

differs from the mail return rate, which refers to the percentage of forms

the Bureau receives from occupied housing units in the mailback universe

and is calculated after the Bureau completes the enumeration process. We

discuss the mail response rate and mail return rate more fully in our
Page 8 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

forthcoming report on the Bureau’s nonresponse follow-up efforts, which

we expect to issue in the near future.

The cost of the partnership program from October 1997 through

September 2000 totaled about $142.9 million, or about 2 percent of the

estimated $6.5 billion total cost for the 2000 Census. This is an average of

about $1.19 for each of the 120 million households the Bureau estimates

make up the nation.

The partnership program was labor-intensive. In fact, Bureau spending

data show that salaries and benefits accounted for the largest component

of the partnership spending, totaling $65.1 million (46 percent) for fiscal

years 1998 through 2000. The remainder of the spending, $77.8 million (54

percent), covered travel, shipping, postage, printing, telecommunication

services, contracts, training, supplies, and equipment.

The $142.9 million also included $14 million in “in-kind” funding to support

local partners’ efforts to promote the census. The money was not given

directly to local partners; rather Bureau regional census centers purchased

the items on partners’ behalf directly from vendors. The funds were used

to purchase educational and promotional materials such as flyers,

banners, balloons, and stickers tailored to meet the specific needs of local

partners. For example, officials from the city of Alhambra, Calif., reported

that the city received $2,300 of in-kind funds for the purchase of outdoor

street banners in English and Chinese, and, as shown in figure 1, stickers

for outgoing city mail in March and April 2000 encouraging city residents

to support the census.

Financial and Human

Capital Dedicated to

the Partnership

Program
Page 9 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Figure 1: Stickers Purchased by the City of Alhambra for Census 2000 Promotion

Purchased With Bureau In-Kind Funds

Source: City of Alhambra, Calif.

To receive in-kind funding awards of up to $2,499, partners were to

complete applications describing how the project would encourage

targeted audiences to complete their questionnaires, reduce the

undercount of certain populations, or increase awareness of census

activities. In purchasing goods and services from vendors, the Bureau

expected regional census centers to primarily use government purchase

cards. Bureau rules prohibited the funds from being used for a number of

types of goods and services such as cash prizes, food, or salaries, although

Bureau regional officials granted occasional exceptions.

The Bureau did not have data on how it distributed the $14 million of inkind funding. Data were unavailable on which partners received in-kind

support, how much support each partner received, and how the partners

spent the money. Such information is important for accountability

purposes, as well as for managing and assessing the effectiveness of the

effort. Moreover, the lack of information is inconsistent with federal
Page 10 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

internal control standards, which require transactions to be recorded in a

timely and accurate manner, and be readily available for examination.3

Federal standards for internal control require agencies to record

transactions promptly and accurately to maintain their relevance and

value to management in controlling operations and making decisions. In

addition, the documentation should be readily available for examination.4

Because records were not available to census managers on a timely basis,

the Bureau is inconsistent with internal control standards.

Consistent with our findings that the Bureau did not meet federal

requirements for financial management and reporting of in-kind funding

spending, an independent audit of the Bureau’s financial management

procedures found that the Bureau had “significant difficulties and delays

in producing complete and accurate financial statements” for all of its

expenditures.5

 The auditor’s report recommended that the Bureau produce

timely reports that meet the Bureau’s internal, regulatory, and audit

requirements.6

At its peak in fiscal year 2000, the Bureau staffed the partnership program

with 594 full-time equivalent positions7

 of which 560 positions were

located in the field and 34 were in the Bureau’s headquarters (see table 1).

The Bureau hired 665 field partnership staff, some of whom worked parttime.

 3

GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

4

GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

5

U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Financial Report, February 2001, p. 51.

6

U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Financial Report, February 2001, p. 52.

7

One full-time equivalent is one full-time person working 40 hours per week over a 12-

month period, or the equivalent of that level of work.

Partnership Program

Staffing Levels
Page 11 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Table 1: Number of Full-time Equivalents for the Partnership Program

Fiscal year Field Headquarters Total

1998 88 22 110

1999 362 30 392

2000 560 34 594

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census.

The staffing level was 332 full-time partnership staff positions more than

the Bureau originally planned. The Bureau received additional funding for

its partnership efforts following a 1999 Supreme Court ruling8

 that

prohibited the use of statistical sampling to produce state population

totals for apportioning the House of Representatives.

Most of the field staff were “partnership specialists” who received special

Bureau training and were responsible for mobilizing local support for the

census by working with Complete Count Committees and other

organizations (the qualifications and backgrounds of partnership

specialists are described in greater detail later in this report). However,

according to Bureau officials, the 560 field positions also included a small

number of other occupations, such as those in support staff.

Table 1 also shows that the full complement of partnership staff did not

come on board until after the start of fiscal year 2000 (October 1, 1999),

when the Bureau filled the remaining 202 (34 percent) of the 594 positions

authorized for the partnership program. Although Bureau headquarters

officials recognized the benefits of hiring partnership staff earlier in the

census cycle to allow them more time to learn about census operations

and build local contacts, they also said the cost of doing so was difficult to

justify.

Compared to the 1990 Census, the Bureau had more partnership positions

for the 2000 Census, but a rough indicator of their workload—the average

number of local jurisdiction Complete Count Committees they

supported—suggests that partnership staff were more thinly spread in

2000. Indeed, the 560 full-time field positions filled for the 2000 Census is

over three times the 181 positions filled for the 1990 Census. However, in

1990, the 181 partnership staff supported the work of 2,201 Complete

Count Committees or about 12 committees per each partnership staff

 8

Department of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives, 525 U.S. 316 (1999).
Page 12 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

position. For 2000, 560 partnership specialists were responsible for

working with 11,253 committees, or about 20 committees per specialist.

The partnership specialists’ heavy workload may have limited the level of

support they were able to provide to individual local census offices. In our

survey of local census office managers, when asked about the

effectiveness of the outreach and promotion program in reaching hard-toenumerate populations, 28 percent thought that the program needed no

improvement. On the other hand, 40 percent thought that some

improvement was needed, and another 30 percent thought that significant

improvement was needed (2 percent of the managers responded that they

had no basis on which to judge or were unsure of the effectiveness of the

program). A number of respondents who saw room for improvement

expressed the view that partnership specialists were too disparate to offer

meaningful assistance. For example, one California manager told us, “The

partnership [specialist] was stretched far too thin, and was expected to

cover three counties.” Likewise, a Pennsylvania manager said, “The

partnership specialist assigned to the Scranton office was responsible for

multiple local census offices. The [Assistant Manager for Field Operations

(AMFO)] felt that the partnership specialists were spread too thin. As a

result, the former local census office manager and AMFO ended up doing

most of the outreach and promotion work.”

For their part, while the partnership specialists we spoke to generally

agreed that the Bureau hired enough specialists to carry out partnership

activities, they also reported that they could have used more clerical

support to help alleviate some of the specialists’ administrative work,

which included distributing thousands of posters and other promotional

items to partner organizations and entering data into the Bureau’s

partnership tracking system (each regional census center typically hired

four to six partnership program support staff).

Specialists reported to and were overseen by regional partnership

coordinators and partnership specialist team leaders at their respective

regional census centers. Bureau headquarters officials explained that this

structure was established so that specialists could coordinate their efforts

with other partnership specialists in the same area, share common

problems and solutions, and convey the national census campaign at the

local level. Also, some partnership specialists hired to reach out to specific

ethnic groups were responsible for areas under many local census offices,

making it logistically difficult to report to one local census office. For

example, the tribal partnership specialist for the Charlotte Regional

Census Center was responsible for a four-state area that included 40
Page 13 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

different Indian tribes. Therefore, she reported that it did not make sense

for her to report to one local census office, as the local office was

concerned with only a small portion of the area the for which the

specialist was responsible.

However, the local census managers we surveyed provided a different

perspective of this management structure. Of the 70 percent of

respondents who said the effectiveness of the outreach program in

reaching hard-to-enumerate populations needed some or significant

improvement, a common perception was that there were coordination

challenges between the local census offices and the partnership

specialists. To better integrate the local census offices with the

partnership program, a number of managers suggested that the

partnership specialists should report directly to local census office

managers. Illustrating this viewpoint, a local census manager from

Connecticut reported that there was “very poor” coordination with the

partnership specialist because the partnership program was under a

separate chain of command. Similarly, a local census manager in Maryland

told us, “There was very little coordination between the partners and the

local census office. The lack of coordination resulted in some unnecessary

... duplication of effort. For example, one partner held a census awareness

session in a community that had already been enumerated by census

workers, negating any real need to hold such a session at that time.”

According to the Bureau, it is more effective to have partnership

specialists report to partnership coordinators because they are more

experienced in outreach, rather than to local census office managers who

are responsible for a variety of operations. Regardless of the management

structure, what is clear is that more positive experiences seemed to result

when local managers and partnership specialists dovetailed their efforts.

For example, a Detroit manager told us that she had a “very good”

experience with the partnership program in part because the local

partnership specialist attended local office meetings and stayed in close

communication to develop outreach and promotion strategies.
Page 14 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

As we noted in our October 2000 report, at the time of the census,

decisions on which organizations the Bureau partnered with and what

events the Bureau participated in were governed by unwritten guidelines

and criteria.9

 The Bureau noted that it was very difficult to have guidelines

about partnering decisions because these decisions tend to be subjective,

and there are difficult trade-offs involved in making partnering decisions.

According to Bureau officials, partnering decisions were driven by (1) the

Bureau’s desire to partner with virtually any organization that was willing

to support the census and (2) the specific demographic, cultural, and other

characteristics of each census region.

In practice, Bureau officials said that the Bureau relied on the judgment of

its partnership specialists and other field staff to determine which

organizations to partner with, what events to attend, and how to make the

best use of their time. However, according to the Bureau, partnership

specialists’ decisions were subject to supervisory review, and the Bureau

had an unwritten policy not to partner with law enforcement and certain

other federal agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service, because it

could give the public the impression that the Bureau was sharing

information with them. In addition, according to Bureau officials,

employees were provided guidance concerning the statute that prohibits

federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities.

Similarly, the Bureau had no written guidelines on how organizations

could characterize their relationship with the Bureau, including the

appropriate use of the Bureau’s Census 2000 logo shown in figure 2. The

Bureau encouraged organizations to use the census logo to customize

promotional and other literature, and made it available on its Internet site,

but aside from stylistic guidelines, such as logo color restrictions and logo

font requirements, the Bureau did not provide any guidance on what

constituted proper and improper use.

 9

Census Bureau Participation in Los Angeles Symposium, August 2000 (GAO-01-124R,

October 24, 2000).

Partnering Decisions

and Logo Use Were

Governed by

Unwritten Guidelines

and Criteria
Page 15 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Figure 2: The Bureau’s Logo as Downloaded From Its Web Site

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

The lack of written guidelines raised the risk that the Bureau might

partner with organizations that could create perceptual or other

difficulties for the Bureau, or that partners could use the Bureau’s logo or

characterize their relationship with the Bureau in a way that could have a

similar effect.

Better guidance could help avoid situations that might raise congressional

concern such as that which occurred when the Bureau, at the invitation of

one of its partners, participated in a public symposium that focused on

challenges facing the African American community, including census

undercounts. The event was held in Los Angeles on August 12, 2000. As we

noted in our October 2000 report, the Bureau considered the request

routine because it provided an opportunity to reach an audience of 1,500

to 2,000 African Americans, a hard-to-count population targeted by the

Bureau. Nevertheless, because promotional material used the Bureau’s

Census 2000 logo, identified the Bureau as a sponsor of the symposium,

and made it appear that the event was connected to the Democratic

National Convention (which began in Los Angeles on August 14), members

of Congress raised concerns about the Bureau’s attendance.

In response to our October report, the Chairman of the House

Subcommittee on the Census called on the Bureau to develop a written

policy governing its partnership decisions and the use of its logo. In its

December 7, 2000, letter, the Bureau outlined the guidelines under which

the partnership program had operated and under which the Bureau

believes the program has functioned effectively. The guidelines state that
Page 16 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

when partnering with government agencies, community groups, or local

individuals, Bureau officials will (1) exercise good judgment, (2) avoid the

reality or appearance of impropriety or preferential treatment, (3) follow

rules limiting federal employees’ involvement in political activity, and

(4) not partner with law enforcement and certain other federal agencies.

Although the written guidelines are a step in the right direction, they still

do not address how partners may characterize their association with the

Bureau, nor do they discuss how partners may use the Bureau’s logo.

Thus, the Bureau still faces the risk that an organization could use the

partnership program in a manner that could create operational or

perceptual problems for the Bureau.

Moreover, the lack of guidelines governing use of the Bureau’s logo is at

odds with federal internal control requirements that call on agencies to

develop processes and procedures that support performance-based

management and minimize operational problems. As required in the

November 1999 federal internal control standards,10 agencies must

establish control over assets vulnerable to unauthorized use. Much like

trademarks used by private companies, the census logo is a valuable asset

in that it represents the Bureau, its mission, and its reputation. Therefore,

it is important for the Bureau to safeguard its use while maintaining its

flexibility and accessibility to partners.

Bureau officials believe that a set of rigid guidelines would narrow the

scope of its outreach efforts and limit their effectiveness. However, the

practices of other federal agencies that partner with nongovernmental

entities or allow limited public use of their logos provide some useful

guidance for the Bureau. For example, the National Park Service partners

with authorized nonprofit organizations and other authorized individuals

or entities. They in turn may raise funds from private companies for the

benefit of the national park system. Although the Park Service allows

businesses to publicize their support, Park Service rules prevent them

from characterizing their association in such a way that suggests the Park

Service uses or endorses the companies’ products or services.11

Other federal agencies have issued regulations that control public use of

their logos and symbols and specify what constitutes appropriate use. For

 10GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

11National Park Service, Director’s Order #21: Donations and Fundraising.
Page 17 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

example, under regulations governing property management, the Chief of

the U.S. Forest Service can authorize the use of the Forest Service insignia

for noncommercial educational purposes without charge when its use is a

public service that will contribute to public knowledge and understanding

of the Forest Service, its mission, and its objectives. The regulations also

allow the Chief to revoke the use of the insignia if it is being used in a way

that is “offensive to decency and good taste or injurious to the image of the

Forest Service.”

12 Similar regulations control the use of the Forest

Service’s “Smokey Bear” and “Woodsy Owl” symbols.13

In our ongoing work on performance management, we have consistently

stressed that credible performance information is essential for accurately

assessing an agency’s progress in achieving its program goals. In cases

where sufficient progress is not being made, this information can be used

to identify opportunities for improvement. To monitor the performance of

the partnership program and evaluate its overall success, the Bureau

developed a centralized database called the Contact Profile Usage

Management System (CPUMS). Specifically, CPUMS was designed to

track, plan, and analyze the Bureau’s partnership efforts by monitoring

such information as the kinds of organizations the Bureau partnered with,

the commitments the organizations made, and whether they fulfilled their

commitments. Bureau headquarters officials told us that they checked

CPUMS three or four times a week to get a sense of what was going on in

the Bureau’s regions and to determine whether targeted groups were being

reached. However, several shortcomings appear to have reduced the

reliability of CPUMS data and limited its use as an effective management

tool.

According to Bureau headquarters officials, CPUMS was slow and not user

friendly, and keeping the data current was a challenge because of data

entry backlogs. These problems in turn led to inefficiencies and

duplication of effort, prompting partnership specialists and regional

census centers to keep duplicate tracking systems. For example, the

separate partnership tracking systems confused local census managers

and partnership specialists about which partners had been contacted. The

Bureau did not detect many of these problems prior to the census in part

 1236 C.F.R. part 264.

1336 C.F.R. parts 271 and 272.

The Bureau’s

Database for Tracking

the Partnership

Program Had

Shortcomings
Page 18 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

because CPUMS was developed after the 1998 dress rehearsal for the 2000

Census and was not fully tested before it went operational.14

In response to the problems it encountered with CPUMS, the Bureau

developed a new partnership tracking system called Prisms, which went

online in mid April 2001. According to Bureau officials, unlike CPUMS,

Prisms is Web-based and thus more easily accessible to partnership

program staff. In addition, Prisms is to provide managers with more

advanced reporting and querying capabilities.

As part of its efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of the 2000 Census and

to begin planning for the 2010 Census, the Bureau is conducting two

separate evaluations of the partnership program. To get partner feedback

on the implementation of the program, the Bureau mailed out a survey to

15,000 partners asking them about their experiences in obtaining

promotional items, the types and value of in-kind services rendered, the

specific partnership activities they conducted, and their view of the

effectiveness of the overall program in reaching hard-to-count populations.

According to the Bureau, this evaluation is scheduled for completion by

August 2001. The Bureau is also doing an internal operational assessment

of the partnership program. As part of this assessment, partnership

program staff were asked about the effectiveness of the program in

reaching its goals and how the program could be improved for 2010.

For the longer term, according to Bureau officials, the Bureau intends to

institutionalize its partnership efforts so it can maintain the organizational

relationships it developed for the 2000 Census and not have to start over

when preparing for the next head count in 2010. For fiscal year 2001, the

Bureau budgeted $5.4 million to support a series of “data transition

workshops” for partners and other interested parties on how to access and

use census data. According to Bureau officials, the Bureau wants to make

census data more easily available to data users, particularly organizations

that have not traditionally used census data but were very active in the

Bureau’s partnership program during this census. The Bureau also hopes

to build on these relationships to enhance community awareness of and

participation in its annual, nondecennial demographic and economic

 14The dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census was held in Sacramento, Calif.; 11 South Carolina

counties and the City of Columbia; and Menominee County, Wisc., including the

Menominee American Indian Reservation. The purpose of the dress rehearsal was to

demonstrate the overall design of the 2000 Census.

The Bureau Plans to

Evaluate and

Continue the

Partnership Program
Page 19 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

surveys. In addition, the Bureau hopes to engage partners to support the

American Community Survey, an ongoing survey that the Census Bureau

plans to use to replace the long form in the 2010 Census. Full

implementation of the survey is to begin in 2003.

Based on our meetings with representatives of partner organizations and

the Bureau, we identified a number of best practices that appear to be key

to successful partnership engagements. As the Bureau assesses the 2000

effort, these and other best practices should prove valuable as the Bureau

moves ahead with plans to make the partnership program permanent and

gears up for the next national head count in 2010.

As shown in figure 3, we found that successful partnership engagements

are the joint responsibility of both partners and the Bureau. For partners,

best practices include (1) identifying “census champions”—people who

will actively support the census and encourage others to do so, (2) linking

census promotional and other efforts to the partner’s existing activities,

and (3) leveraging resources by working with other partners and

customizing existing census informational material. For the Bureau, best

practices include (1) providing adequate and timely guidance, promotional

materials, and other resources, (2) maintaining open channels of

communication with partners, and (3) encouraging the early involvement

of partners in census activities.

Best Practices for

Forging Productive

Partnerships
Page 20 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Figure 3: Census Partnerships Best Practices Checklist

Source: GAO.

A critical building block of constructive partnership engagements

appeared to be the presence of “census champions” within local

organizations. These individuals recognized the community benefits that

could accrue from a complete and accurate population count, had the

authority to commit their organizations’ resources toward that goal, and

were sufficiently persuasive to mobilize others.

Best Practices for Partners

Identify “Census Champions”

Partner Best Practices

1. Identify “census champions”

2. Link promotional and other support to partner’s existing activities

3. Leverage resources by working with other partners and customizing 

informational materials

Census Partnerships

Best Practices Checklist

Partner Best Practices

1. Identify “census champions”

2. Link promotional and other support to partner’s existing activities

3. Leverage resources by working with other partners and customizing

informational materials

Bureau Best Practices

1. Provide adequate and timely information on how partners can support

 the census

2. Maintain open channels of communication with local partners

3. Encourage partners to initiate census planning activities early
Page 21 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Champions we encountered in the course of our work included elected

officials, heads of city agencies, religious leaders, and school officials.

Although each supported the census in different ways, they generally had

certain elements in common. First, they viewed support of the census as

an investment with a long-term payoff, as opposed to a short-term

expense, and were thus more inclined to allocate time, people, and money

towards the census. For example, a champion for the City of Detroit was

the City Clerk. Her office led the effort in creating a Homeless Task Force

to count all the homeless in the city, cosponsoring Census Town Hall

meetings with the Detroit City Council, and bringing together all the

elected officials in Detroit—including the Mayor, the City Council

President, a U.S. Congressman, and a U.S. Senator—for a televised public

service announcement and a billboard encouraging Detroit residents to

participate in the census. A copy of this billboard is shown in figure 4.

Figure 4: Detroit Billboard Showing Political Figures’ Support of the Census

Source: Brogan and Partners Communications.

Second, census champions helped garner the commitment and support of

other community leaders and organizations, which increased the visibility

of the census still further. For example, the Wyoming Governor’s liaison to

the census told us that the Governor, in realizing how much the accuracy

of the census affects the distribution of federal funds to Wyoming, formed

a task force in early 1999 to encourage municipalities to promote the
Page 22 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

census. The Task Force published statistical and demographic data to

show Wyoming localities how much funding they might lose if all their

residents were not counted. It also issued press releases about census

recruiting needs, participated in American Indian pow-wows, set up

questionnaire assistance centers for the Bureau, and, as shown in figure 5,

developed a separate logo supporting the census.

Figure 5: Logo Developed by the Wyoming Census Task Force for Census 2000

Promotion

Source: The Wyoming Census Task Force.

In addition, census champions used their credibility within their

communities to help dispel misperceptions about the census. For example,

to counter a long-held belief that tribal members had nothing to gain from

taking part in the census, the Chief of the Tuscarora Indian Tribe in

Pembroke, N.C. decided in early 1999 to partner with the Bureau. At

monthly tribal meetings he discussed how census data are used as a basis
Page 23 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

for funding decisions at all levels of government and stressed that a

complete count of the Tuscarora Indians might help them in their petition

to become a federally recognized tribe.

A second best practice that emerged from our discussions with local

partners was the integration of census-related activities with an

organization’s day-to-day work. This allowed local partners to support the

census using existing staff and other organizational resources. Further,

partners said that supporting the census as part of an organization’s dayto-day activities helped reduce people’s fear and distrust of the census

because they could see how organizations they were familiar with were

already participating.

For example, as part of its efforts to help the Bureau develop a more

complete address list, Los Angeles tasked employees of the Department of

Water and Power, sanitation workers, as well as many other city

employees to identify dwellings that the Bureau may have missed as part

of its address-list development operations. These employees were selected

because their work necessitated their going door-to-door, and thus they

were well suited to find “nonstandard” housing units such as converted

garages and subdivided single family homes. The city’s Information

Technology Agency developed a 10-minute video describing the

importance of this citywide effort, what nonstandard dwellings look like,

and how to report any findings. According to the city, over 38,000

nonstandard dwellings were confirmed by the Bureau. Locating

nonstandard housing was particularly important to the city since the city

believed the exclusion of these units from the address list played a

significant role in Los Angeles’ undercount in 1990.

Link Promotional and Other

Support to the Partner’s

Existing Activities

Partner Best Practices

1. Identify “census champions”

2. Link promotional and other support to partner’s existing activities

3. Leverage resources by working with other partners and customizing 

informational materials
Page 24 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

A third role for partners was enhancing the impact of their support by

sharing ideas and resources with other organizations that had also

partnered with the Bureau. In this way, they coordinated activities to

reach more people while making more efficient use of their resources, and

they avoided duplicating the efforts of others. For example, in Detroit,

service providers to the homeless worked together to determine how they

could best promote the census among those without residences. As a

group they organized special promotional events on different nights

around the city and coordinated their distribution of promotional items.

One service provider organized a gospel choir concert in honor of the

census, with a choir made up of homeless men, women, and children.

Homeless service providers encouraged homeless persons from all over

the city to participate.

Partners also leveraged their resources by customizing the Bureau’s

census informational materials to better resonate with local groups.

Indeed, they said that incorporating symbols, images, languages, and

people familiar to a particular community helped community members to

identify with and be more receptive to the census. For example, a Los

Angeles Korean organization developed its own census logo, as shown in

the banner held by two staff members in figure 6. The organization

developed brochures in Korean and tailored its census message to

undocumented immigrants by emphasizing that census information was

confidential by law.

Leverage Resources by

Working With Other Partners

and Customizing Informational

Materials

Partner Best Practices

1. Identify “census champions”

2. Link promotional and other support to partner’s existing activities

3. Leverage resources by working with other partners and 

customizing informational materials
Page 25 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Figure 6: Korean Senior Center Banner With Tailored Census 2000 Questionnaire

Assistance Center Logo

Source: GAO.
Page 26 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

A number of the partners we spoke to stressed the importance of the

Bureau’s providing partners with information on the census and guidance

on how the partners could best lend their support. They said that this was

important so that they could adequately plan for and participate in census

activities. For example, to help educate the Eastern Shoshone Tribe

(located on the Wyoming Wind River Indian Reservation) about census

operations and the partnership program, the Bureau provided information

through the Tribal Leaders’ Council, an organization representing Montana

and Wyoming tribal governments. According to a tribal representative, the

Bureau also provided the tribe a copy of its Tribal Complete Count

Committee Handbook. The 46-page handbook lays out suggested

activities, including running public service announcements with voiceovers by tribal leaders and community elders, distributing census

awareness materials throughout the tribe’s jurisdiction, and collaborating

with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to develop in-school initiatives that

support the census.

The partners we spoke with also noted the importance of the Bureau’s

deploying census information and other resources in a timely manner. This

was particularly true with in-kind funding, where the partners said they

needed sufficient time to apply for the support and to plan census

promotional and other activities. However, in some cases, the timeliness

of the in-kind funding may have fallen short of partners’ needs. For

example, the Bureau announced the availability of in-kind funding in

January 2000, 3 months before Census Day. A number of partners we

spoke with said that this left little time for them to apply for the support

and organize specific events. One Wyoming social service organization—

Needs Inc.—told us that it received notice about the availability of in-kind

funding awards the day the applications were due. This gave the

Best Practices for the

Bureau

Provide Adequate and Timely

Information on How Partners

Can Support the Census

Bureau Best Practices

1. Provide adequate and timely information on how partners can

 support the census

2. Maintain open channels of communication with local partners

3. Encourage partners to initiate census planning activities early
Page 27 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

organization a day to apply for the in-kind support and find a vendor to

supply promotional items. A Needs Inc. representative told us that had the

organization known about the in-kind support earlier, it would have

planned more promotional activities. According to Bureau officials,

factors affecting the timeliness of the in-kind support included budgetcycle delays and government credit card spending limits.

A second best practice emerging from our conversations with partners

centered on the Bureau’s establishing clear communication links with its

partners, mostly through the Bureau’s partnership specialists. The partners

said that good communication was important for exchanging information

on local enumeration conditions, such as locations of hard-to-count

populations and key community contacts. In addition, clear

communication links helped the Bureau to be more responsive to partners’

questions about census operations. For example, a representative for the

Detroit Census Task Force noted that a partnership specialist or other

Bureau official regularly attended Task Force meetings to keep everyone

up-to-date about available Bureau support and upcoming census

operations.

To increase the Bureau’s ability to identify and communicate with local

partners, and to overcome the wariness certain groups had towards the

government, the Bureau tried to hire partnership specialists from and

familiar with the cultures and languages of the communities where they

would work. In addition, the Bureau expected partnership specialists to

have an understanding of the structure and function of local businesses

and community organizations, as well as negotiation and presentation

skills. To help ensure that partnership specialists had the information and

skills with which to speak knowledgeably about Census 2000 operations

and to negotiate effective partnerships, the Bureau required specialists to

Maintain Open Channels of

Communication With Local

Partners

Bureau Best Practices

1. Provide adequate and timely information on how partners can

 support the census

2. Maintain open channels of communication with local partners

3. Encourage partners to initiate census planning activities early
Page 28 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

complete three stages of training totaling about 25 days. Training topics

included the history of the census, the Bureau’s overall plan of operation,

and communication and media skills, such as delivering effective

presentations and developing partnerships in multicultural environments.

Our discussions with partners demonstrated the importance of this hiring

and training strategy. For example, the Charlotte, N.C., regional census

office hired a Native American partnership specialist who was very active

in her tribe and with local Native American organizations. According to

the partnership specialist, she already had credibility within the

community and understood the importance of working within the tribal

hierarchy to gain the trust of the tribe’s chief and elders necessary to

engage the tribe in promoting the census.

Another method the Bureau used to communicate with its partners was its

Census 2000 Web site. The site had a link to a page devoted to the

partnership program from which partners could download documents

such as brochures, press releases, and newsletter articles, as well as

information about census operations. A number of partners we spoke with

said that they used the Web site to find information for newsletters, 1990

and current response rates, publicity messages for advertising, and school

materials.

A third role for the Bureau appeared to be enlisting the early support of

partners in planning census activities. The partners we met with often told

us that it takes time to develop the infrastructure to support the census at

the local level, as well as to educate the community about the importance

of participating in the census. In addition, several census operations that

can benefit from partner involvement, such as reviewing and updating the

Bureau’s address list, take place several years prior to Census Day. As a

Encourage Partners to Initiate

Census Planning Activities

Early

Bureau Best Practices

1. Provide adequate and timely information on how partners can

 support the census

2. Maintain open channels of communication with local partners

3. Encourage partners to initiate census planning activities early
Page 29 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

result, some partners launched their census efforts as much as 3 years

prior to Census Day while others told us that their efforts could have been

more effective had they started earlier in the census cycle. For example,

officials in Maywood, Calif., said the city started its census efforts 3 years

prior to the census, which allowed the city to budget a total of $30,000

from 1997 through 2000 to promote the census to its many non-Englishspeaking Hispanic immigrants. In contrast, representatives from a

subcommittee of the Robeson County, N.C., Complete Count Committee

told us they began their census promotion efforts in November 1999, 5

months before Census Day. The representatives explained that they felt

this was too late to effectively incorporate census promotion efforts into

different community events, such as Pembroke’s December holiday

parade.

A little over a year after Census Day 2000, the Bureau’s partnership

program is at a crossroads. The intensive effort to mobilize grassroots

support for the census by engaging as many organizations and people as

possible is over, and the program is focused on the lower-intensity but

longer term job of sustaining those relationships. Overall, the Bureau

made an extraordinary effort to fulfill the goals of the partnership program

over a relatively short period. More significantly, based on our

observations, it is quite likely that key census-taking activities, such as

recruiting temporary census workers and encouraging people to complete

their questionnaires, would have been less successful had it not been for

the Bureau’s aggressive partnership efforts.

Still, the full impact of the partnership program will not be known until the

Bureau completes its evaluations. As it does so, it will be important for the

Bureau to assess how its partnership efforts affected different populations

and census operations, as well as the adequacy of its partnership staffing

levels. Such information will be important for determining the costeffectiveness of the program and for allocating resources in the years to

come. Moreover, our review highlights Bureau and partner best practices

and lessons learned that appear to be key to effective partnership

engagements. As part of its evaluation, it will be important for the Bureau

to explore these further to best apply its limited resources. In addition, the

Bureau should examine ways to increase the coordination and

communication between the partnership specialists and the local census

office managers. By having a close relationship with the local census

managers and local census offices, the partnership program could benefit

from the ground-level perspective that managers have about the

enumeration challenges of their particular areas.

Conclusions
Page 30 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Our review also suggests that as the program moves forward, the

partnership program could benefit from tighter internal controls and a

greater performance orientation in several key areas. Those areas include

better documentation of how the Bureau spends its in-kind support, clear

guidance on how partners can characterize their association with the

Bureau and use the Bureau’s logo, and a more effective information

system to monitor the partnership program. Together, such improvements

could help (1) increase financial accountability, (2) reduce the risk of

engaging partners that might raise perceptual or other problems that could

undermine the Bureau’s efforts, and (3) provide program managers with

better information on the status of the partnership program for more

informed decisions on program performance.

To foster a more accountable and performance-oriented partnership

program, we recommend that the Secretary of Commerce ensure that the

Bureau take the following actions.

• In completing the evaluations of the partnership program as planned,

ensure that the Bureau managers receive the information they need to

refine and develop the program and allocate resources appropriately. As

part of this effort, the Bureau should identify best practices and ensure

that they are incorporated into future partnership efforts.

• Document in-kind funding expenditures and maintain proper accounting

in accordance with federal government standards for internal control.

• Explore ways to increase the coordination and communication between

the partnership specialists and the local census office managers.

• Review partnership specialist staffing levels to make sure that the levels

are sufficient to ensure the adequate provision of Bureau support to

partners.

• Develop regulations specifying how organizations may characterize their

association with the Bureau and how they may use the Bureau’s logo. The

guidance should provide for needed flexibility while informing partners

that they should not characterize their association with the Bureau or use

the census logo in a manner that is inconsistent with the Bureau’s mission,

nor should they imply that the Bureau is sponsoring or endorsing a

particular activity or organization.

• Ensure that Prisms, the Bureau’s new partnership tracking system, is fully

tested under the operational loads expected for future operations and the

2010 Census. This should help ensure that Prisms increases the accuracy,

ease of use, and utility of the Bureau’s partnership program database and

provides the Bureau with credible performance information necessary for

monitoring, planning, and evaluating the partnership program.

Recommendations for

Executive Action
Page 31 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

• Ensure that partnership specialists, as part of their training, are made

aware of the best practices of productive partnerships, and that they

incorporate those practices when engaging partners in the future.

The Secretary of Commerce forwarded written comments from the Bureau

of the Census on a draft of this report. The Bureau generally provided

additional perspective and clarification on several of our key points and

recommendations. Further, the Bureau said it would implement three of

our seven recommendations, and acknowledged the importance of three

of the four remaining recommendations. The Bureau provided clarifying

information for a seventh recommendation concerning the need to

increase coordination and communication between partnership specialists

and local census office managers, but did not directly agree or disagree

with it.

The recommendations the Bureau agreed to implement included our

recommendations to (1) document in-kind funding expenditures,

(2) review partnership specialist staffing levels to ensure they provide

needed support, and (3) develop regulations specifying how organizations

may characterize their association with the Bureau.

With respect to our finding that the Bureau had no data on how it

distributed $14 million of in-kind funding to local partners, the Bureau

reported that its staff reviewed each expenditure and the funds “were

dispersed in accordance with standards for internal control in the federal

government.” As we noted in our report, federal internal control standards

require transactions to be recorded in a timely and accurate manner.

Moreover, this information is important for accountability purposes, as

well as for managing and assessing the effectiveness of the local funding of

partnership efforts. In the absence of data on in-kind funding

expenditures, we could not independently review the transactions.

The Bureau noted that partners assisted with the recruitment of over 3.7

million individuals to work on the census as opposed to the 2.5 million

that we reported in our draft. According to the Bureau, the 2.5 million

represents enumerators for nonresponse follow-up and certain other data

collection operations. The 3.7 million represents field and office staff

working on all operations from March 1997 through September 2000. We

revised the draft accordingly.

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
Page 32 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

The Bureau disagreed with our use of the ratio of partnership specialists

to complete count committees as an indicator of the specialists’ workload.

The Bureau noted that regardless of the number of specialists or

committees, partnership specialists are to offer assistance if and when

needed.

We recognized the limitation of the measure and thus referred to it as a

“rough” indicator in the draft. Nevertheless, the ratio of partnership

specialists to complete count committees is a useful way of comparing

partnership specialists’ workloads from one census to another. The

Bureau expected partnership specialists to provide guidance and staff

support for committee activities, engaging in such tasks as providing

general information and keeping committees abreast of census operations

and schedules. Thus, it is likely that, overall, the greater the number of

committees, the greater the demands on specialists’ time.

The Bureau provided clarifying information for our findings and

recommendation concerning the partnership program’s management

structure and level of coordination between the local offices and

partnership specialists. In response, we revised the draft to better reflect

the Bureau’s view that it is better to have partnership specialists report to

partnership coordinators rather than to local census managers, as some

managers suggested in our survey. However, as we also note in the report,

regardless of the management structure, more positive experiences

seemed to result when local managers and partnership specialists

dovetailed their efforts, hence our recommendation for the Bureau to

explore ways to increase the coordination and communication between

partnership specialists and local census office managers.

In commenting on our recommendation to identify partnership program

best practices and incorporate them into future partnership efforts, the

Bureau said it recognized the value of sharing information. The Bureau

noted that throughout the 2000 Census, the Bureau’s plans and activities

included numerous opportunities for staff to share best practices with

each other and their partners. The Bureau’s efforts to share information

during the 2000 Census are commendable, and it will be important for the

Bureau to properly collect and summarize these data so that they can be

used to inform future activities.

With respect to our recommendation concerning Prisms—the Bureau’s

new partnership tracking system—the Bureau responded that the system

is now fully functional. We revised the draft to reflect this fact.
Page 33 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

We are sending copies of this letter to the Chairman of the House

Committee on Government Reform, the Secretary of Commerce, and the

Acting Director of the Bureau of the Census. Copies will be made available

to others on request.

Please contact me on (202) 512-6806 if you have any questions. Other key

contributors to this report are included in appendix II.

J. Christopher Mihm

Director

Strategic Issues
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 34 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of

Commerce
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 35 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 36 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 37 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 38 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Appendix I: Comments From the Secretary of Commerce

Page 39 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships
Appendix II: GAO Contacts and

Staff Acknowledgments

Page 40 GAO-01-579 2000 Census Partnerships

J. Christopher Mihm, (202) 512-6806

Robert Goldenkoff, (202) 512-2757

In addition to those named above, Deborah Eichhorn, Lily Kim, Anne

Rhodes-Kline, Roger Stoltz, Tom Schultz, Michael Volpe, and staff from

our Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver field offices made key contributions

to this report.

Appendix II: GAO Contacts and Staff

Acknowledgments

GAO Contacts

Acknowledgments

(410536)
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