U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

66–541 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: EXAMINING

THE GAO’S CENSUS 2000 OVERSIGHT ACTIVITIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 15, 2000

Serial No. 106–146

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS

DAN MILLER, Florida, Chairman

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

——— ———

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

JANE O. COBB, Staff Director

LARA CHAMBERLAIN, Professional Staff Member

ESTHER SKELLEY, Professional Staff Member

AMY ALTHOFF, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 15, 2000 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Mihm, J. Christopher, Associate Director, Federal Management and

Workforce Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by Randolph C. Hite, Associate Director, Accounting and Information Division,

U.S. General Accounting Office; and Robert Goldenkoff, General Accounting Office .............................................................................................. 13

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 50

Hite, Randolph C., Associate Director, Accounting and Information Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, information concerning DCS

2000 ................................................................................................................ 46

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 11

Mihm, J. Christopher, Associate Director, Federal Management and

Workforce Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 17

Miller, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 4

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: EXAMINING THE GAO’S CENSUS 2000 OVERSIGHT

ACTIVITIES

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in room

2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Miller (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Miller, Maloney, and Davis.

Staff present: Timothy J. Maney, chief investigator; Chip Walker,

communications director; Erin Yeatman, press secretary; Lara

Chamberlain and Esther Skelley, professional staff members; Jo

Powers, assistant press secretary; Amy Althoff, clerk; David

McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff members; and Earley Green, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. MILLER. Good morning. Mrs. Maloney should be here momentarily, but I think we’re ready to begin. And I’ll make my opening statement and Mrs. Maloney will be here certainly in time for

hers.

Good afternoon. Last week we heard from Census Bureau Director Dr. Kenneth Prewitt. Dr. Prewitt testified that the activities for

the 2000 census were on schedule and, at the time, no major problems existed. This included an ad campaign that was running

smoothly and hiring that was on schedule.

I want to be clear from the outset about the purpose of this hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to have the nonpartisan General

Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, give

us its professional assessment of where they believe the Census

Bureau is with respect to the myriad of tasks that must be carried

out successfully in the upcoming months.

I believe it is critical that this Congress not only fully fund the

Census, but fully promote it as well. Yet, at the same time, this

Congress, and specifically this subcommittee, has a responsibility

to conduct oversight of the census and the spending of almost $7

billion in taxpayer dollars. If the nonpartisan GAO fully endorses

the Bureau’s own assessment of the state of the census 2000, nothing would make me happier. However, if its assessment differs,

this subcommittee must know and know quickly. The Members of

this body are the ones elected to provide stewardship over the FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:07 Oct 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66541.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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eral Government. The elected Members of this body are also the

ones ultimately held accountable by the American people.

The mission statement of the nonpartisan GAO, as stated on its

website, says the following,

The GAO’s mission is to help the Congress oversee Federal programs and operations to assure accountability to the American people. GAO’s evaluators, auditors,

lawyers, economists, public policy analysts, information technology specialists, and

other multi-disciplinary professionals seek to enhance the economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and credibility of the Federal Government, both in fact and in the eyes of

the American people.

GAO accomplishes its mission through a variety of activities including financial

audits, program reviews, investigations, legal support and policy/program analyses.

GAO is dedicated to good government through its commitment to the values of accountability, integrity, and reliability.

From the outset, this committee has relied on the professionals

at the nonpartisan GAO to provide important insight into a number of complex operations within the Census Bureau and elsewhere. Many of those professionals at GAO were involved in reviewing the 1990 census, including Chris Mihm, Associate Director,

Federal Management and Workforce Issues, who will be testifying

today.

As we get closer and closer to Census Day, April 1, the interest

in the census continues to rise tremendously. This is certainly evident in the increased coverage of the census by the news media.

Many of these reports are locally oriented, focusing on this community or that one, this county or that town, this reservation or that

rural community.

I find these stories important. They help to remind me that to

look at the census as a national census, controlled within the beltway, is very wrong. While the census produces a national headcount, that head-count is made up of more than 39,000 local governments that stretch from California to Maine, Alaska to Florida,

and beyond.

While Dr. Prewitt, in his testimony last week, said that hiring

is on or ahead of schedule, there does seem to be some problems

in various pockets throughout the country. And while Dr. Prewitt

and Ranking Member Maloney accurately pointed out that there

are going to be problems in an operation this large, there is still

reason to be concerned. If the Navajo reservation in Arizona is having hiring difficulties, it doesn’t much matter that the Bureau is

ahead of its hiring goals in Miami. Additional workers in Miami

are not going to be flown to Arizona to count the Navajos. Communities that are doing well do not have the ability to help those communities that are doing poorly.

Dr. Prewitt also accurately noted that not all news stories are accurate and not all news stories are highlighting certain Census Bureau shortcomings. As Dr. Prewitt said later in his testimony, one

of the ways Congress and the American people would know about

a serious problem with the operational plan is through news reports.

So when Congress has conflicting reports on, for example, the

success of the employment operation, it rightfully turns to the GAO

to shed light on this conflict and, hopefully, reconcile the matter

one way or the other or, at a minimum, provide Congress with

more information to consider.

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Beyond the employment issues, which are at an important stage,

the subcommittee will hear today the status of the DCS 2000, the

new data capture system. The Bureau expects to capture nearly 1.5

billion pages of data from approximately 119 million households.

These pages will be captured at four data capture centers where

the handwritten forms will be optically scanned, converted into

files, and transmitted to Bureau headquarters for tabulation and

analysis.

The GAO has recently released a report on the DCS 2000. The

GAO and the Inspector General’s Office are very concerned about

delays and overestimated productivity regarding the operation of

the DCS 2000 system. If the DCS 2000 system does not function

properly, there will be serious problems in providing the apportionment data to Congress on time, as required by law.

In December, the nonpartisan GAO released a report outlining

its concerns that the Census Bureau was in serious need of a solid

contingency plan. Last week, I was encouraged to hear a few details about its contingency planning, such as increasing wages and

staying in the field longer than planned doing non-response

followups, but more is needed. Today the subcommittee hopes to

hear more about these reports as well as future activities of the

GAO.

Again, thank you for coming in to testify before the subcommittee. And now I yield to the ranking member from New York, Mrs.

Maloney.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Miller follows:]

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the

witnesses today.

The GAO is Congress’ premiere watchdog, responsible for providing credible, objective, and nonpartisan reports and evaluations of

the programs and management of the executive, judicial, and, in

some cases, legislative branches of government. Without your work,

our jobs as legislators and overseers of the executive would be almost impossible. So thank you for all of your hard work.

As I said last week, things seem to be going fairly well. Recruiting is on track. 520 local census offices are open and operational.

The paid advertising campaign is moving smoothly into its most active phase. Additionally, the legislation—wait. I’m ahead of myself.

The address list is nearly complete. Some of the data presented in

GAO’s testimony indicates that there may be some localized hiring

problems. Although this is helpful information, the GAO’s findings

do not affect my overall judgment that all operations for census

2000 seem to be on track.

As I also mentioned last week, I believe we need to be prepared

for all contingencies, which is why I’ve introduced H.R. 3581. And

I’d like to make it bipartisan, Mr. Chairman. I hope you’ll join me

on it. This legislation would create a contingency fund for the 2000

census. If there are problems with the mail response rate or with

the hiring program, funds need to be available to respond to

glitches in a very quick manner so that the larger job of conducting

an accurate 2000 census can be completed on time.

Following on recommendations from the GAO, this legislation

would also expand the labor pool to include active duty military

personnel and individuals who have received buy-outs from the

Federal Government. Additionally, the legislation would allow recipients of Federal assistance to work for the Census without a loss

of benefits.

These are common sense preventive measures to ensure a high

quality census. I am looking forward to hearing GAO’s comments

on my legislation since I tried to respond to the issues they raised

in their December report.

I am also very interested in hearing from you how GAO is intending to act out its oversight responsibilities, while at the same

time being aware of the total number of watchdogs and the demands they will be placing on the census at this very critical time.

As you know, in addition to the GAO, overseeing the census

there is the committee and the committee staff, both sides of the

Census Monitoring Board, the Commerce Department IG, the National Academy of Sciences Review Panel, and the Commerce Secretary’s Advisory Panels. Each of these groups has important jobs

and responsibilities. It is my hope that these various oversight bodies have an awareness of each other and their multiple requests

and demands for information.

While we need strong oversight of the census, we need to make

sure that the oversight doesn’t get in the way of allowing the census to do its job. I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on

this issue. I believe that the 2000 census will be one of the most

accurate in our Nation’s history, especially after the raw headcount information is corrected with modern scientific methods. I am

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confident that the extensive planning that the Census Bureau has

done over the last decade and all the hard work of the Census professionals will pay off with a more accurate count.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Mr. Mihm, if the three of you would stand up and

raise your right hands so I can swear you in, we’ll begin with the

program.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. Let the record identify that they all answered in the

affirmative. Mr. Mihm, do you have an opening statement?

STATEMENT OF J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, FEDERAL MANAGEMENT AND WORKFORCE ISSUES,

U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY

RANDOLPH C. HITE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ACCOUNTING

AND INFORMATION DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING

OFFICE; AND ROBERT GOLDENKOFF, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. MIHM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Mrs.

Maloney. I just want to start out by saying how much I appreciate

your very kind words about the work that the GAO has been doing

and we look forward to continuing to support the subcommittee in

its oversight of the decennial census.

It’s a real pleasure to be here to talk about the status of the census. I’m very fortunate that I’m joined by two of my colleagues:

Randy Hite, who manages a range of GAO work on Federal technology issues, including technology at the census; and Robert

Goldenkoff, who has day-to-day responsibility for much of our work

that we’re looking at the decennial.

My statement today draws upon two recent reports which we did

at the request of the subcommittee in which we discuss some specific operational challenges that have confronted the Census Bureau as it moves into the key operations for the 2000 census. Today

I will highlight these challenges. First, achieving the Bureau’s mail

response rate. Second, collecting accurate and timely data from

non-respondents. And, third, conducting data capture operations.

Turning to the first major uncertainty facing the Bureau. The

mail response rate has declined in each of the last two censuses

and the Bureau expects to receive a 61 percent mail response rate

for 2000. To help boost public participation in the census, the Bureau has instituted an outreach and promotion campaign that is as

ambitious as it is diverse. As Director Prewitt noted last week, television advertisements already have appeared on a number of programs and print ads have been placed in a wide variety of publications. At the local level, the Bureau has secured partnerships with

local governments, community groups, businesses, and non-governmental organizations.

However, the Bureau’s aggressive outreach and promotion initiative faces a fundamental challenge. That is bridging the historic

gap between public awareness of the census and the motivation to

respond. This gap has been evident both during the dress rehearsal

taken last year and the 1990 census when the public’s high level

of awareness was not matched by a high mail response rate. In

1990, the Bureau found that about 93 percent of the population reported being aware of the census, however the mail response rate

was just 65 percent. This basic pattern was also repeated during

the dress rehearsal.

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With respect to partnerships, the Bureau may have overly optimistic expectations concerning the resources and capabilities available at the local level to promote the census. And here, Mr. Chairman, I completely agree with the point that you were making.

While the census is a national undertaking, it’s implemented locally and, therefore, we have to look locally for some of our most

constructive lessons.

A key element of the Bureau’s local partnership effort is the

Complete Count Committee Program, which consists of local government, religious, media, education, and other community centers

coming together to promote the census. Clearly, as was discussed

at last week’s hearing, a number of communities are aggressively

supporting the census. However, the level of activity and support

for the census is likely to vary across the country, in part because

of a lack of resources.

We found that, during the dress rehearsal, the Complete Count

Committees often lacked the money, people, and/or expertise to

promote the census. In part to help, the Bureau has hired over 600

partnership specialists. However, based on the dress rehearsal experience, these specialists may be spread too thin to offer meaningful support. Consequently, it is unlikely that the Bureau’s local outreach and promotion efforts will be consistently applied across the

Nation.

The second major challenge facing the Bureau is the need to

quickly and accurately followup on households that do not mail

back their census forms. Let me just give a sense of the challenge

that the Bureau faces. Let’s assume that the Bureau achieves its

61 percent mail response rate. Obviously, we all hope it’ll be higher

than that, but let’s just assume that that’s what they get. Census

takers will then need to followup on 46 million households. Completing this workload during the Bureau’s 10 week schedule will be

an enormous challenge.

By comparison, during 1990, it took the Bureau 14 weeks to followup on 34 million households. Thus under the current schedule

and response rate that the Bureau has, the Bureau will need to followup on 12 million more households in less time in 2000 than in

1990, using essentially the same methodology. And this is one of

the fundamental challenges that the Bureau faces, again, assuming

all of its assumptions work out.

Experience from the 1990 census shows that, as field data collection drags on, the accuracy of the information collected tends to decline. This is because people move and others have difficulty remembering who was residing in their household as of April 1. As

you discussed with Director Prewitt last week, Mr. Chairman, to

complete non-response followup, the Bureau will collect data from

second-hand sources, the proxy sources, such as neighbors and mail

carriers. Not surprisingly, however, such proxy data are not as reliable as data obtained directly from household residents.

During the dress rehearsal, although non-response followup operations were completed on schedule in Menominee County and Sacramento and 6 days early in South Carolina, the Bureau collected

proxy data at a much higher rate than it had hoped. The Bureau’s

goal was to limit the proportion of the non-response followup universe workload that was proxy to less than 6 percent. UnfortuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:07 Oct 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66541.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nately, however, in Sacramento, over 20 percent of the occupied

non-response followup households was enumerated using proxy

data and, in South Carolina, 16.4 percent and in Menominee County, 11.5 percent. Compared to the decennial census in 1990, there

was about 6.6 percent of the non-response universe was proxy. So

we’re looking at, at best, about double, based on the dress rehearsal experience.

The Bureau’s ability to recruit a sufficient number of staff is another key challenge. The Bureau plans to fill about 860,000 positions for peak field operations, including 539,000 positions for nonresponse followup. To fill these positions, as Director Prewitt mentioned, the Bureau wants to have a pool of 2.4 million qualified applicants by April 19. The Bureau’s goal was to recruit 45 percent

of the 2.4 million qualified applicants, about 1.1 million people, by

February 1.

The Bureau data, as of February 9, showed that, nationally, the

Bureau appears to be well on-track. It had recruited 1.3 million applicants or just over half of its total target. However, national data

masks the fact that the Bureau’s progress in recruiting qualified

applicants lags in a number of locations. As of February 9, 3 of the

Bureau’s 12 regions, that’s Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and

178 of the 511 local census offices, that’s about 35 percent, were

below the Bureau’s 45 percent benchmark. Although some local

census offices were just a few percentage points below the goal,

about 25 of them fell 20 percentage points or more. On the other

hand, and this is the favorable news, of the 333 local census offices

that were ahead of the Bureau’s February 1 milestone, 163 of those

exceeded it by at least 20 percentage points.

We suggested in our December 1999 report that Congress may

wish to consider legislative actions to modify labor provisions that

could prohibit or financially discourage specific groups of people

from seeking census employment. Proposals in this regard, as Mrs.

Maloney mentioned, are included in her legislation H.R. 3581.

The third uncertainty I will discuss today is the need for the Bureau to ensure the effective performance of its data capture systems. The uncertainty falls into two basic categories. First, ensuring the operational readiness of the data capture system known as

DCS 2000, which is the system that each data capture center will

use to check in questionnaires and record census data. And, second,

ensuring the readiness of the data capture operations themselves,

including the movement in the processing of the paper questionnaires.

As we recently reported, the Bureau has made considerable

progress in acquiring and deploying the DCS 2000. However, we

noted that the Bureau was still facing a huge challenge in delivering the promised DCS 2000 capabilities on time, primarily because

much remained to be done within the very short time remaining

before data capture operations were to begin. Under the Bureau’s

current schedule, it has just 9 days between the conclusion of the

last system test and the date the DCS 2000 must be operational

in early March.

In addition, the numbers of yet-to-be-resolved defects in the DCS

2000 were not yet showing the clear and sustained downward trend

that is expected as systems begin to mature. Finally, of course, yetVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:07 Oct 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66541.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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to-be-completed development and testing activities may surface

even more problems.

The Bureau and its DCS 2000 development contractor shared our

concerns that we laid out in the report about the delivery of the

promised DCS 2000 capabilities on time and, in response, were employing a series of important measures to minimize the risk and

expedite the completion of DCS 2000. The Bureau is to conduct a

final operational test involving all four of its data capture centers

on February 22 through 25 and we will be monitoring those closely

on behalf of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, as I have discussed, despite intensive efforts, the

census still confronts some major operational uncertainties. Because of these uncertainties, we recommended in our report that

the Bureau develop a contingency plan of actions that it took to address a lower than expected mail response rate. We suggested that

the Bureau’s plan address, at a minimum, the budgetary scheduling, staffing, and other logistical implications of collecting data

from a larger than expected number of non-responding households.

That contingency plan, which we believe should be shared with

Congress, could include options and procedures to balance the pressure to meet census schedules against the need to limit the use of

proxy data. The uncertainties facing the Bureau’s data capture system make the need for a contingency plan, in our view, even more

compelling.

In summary, the Bureau has put forth a tremendous effort to

help ensure a complete and accurate count. It has tested and retested its design and made significant modifications where necessary. Nevertheless, substantial challenges to a successful census

remain and, as we have done throughout this decade, we look forward to keeping the subcommittee informed of the Bureau’s

progress and the results. This concludes my statement. My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you

may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much for the statement. Let me

start. You were involved with the 1990 census, I believe. Right?

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir.

Mr. MILLER. What are your impressions of the overall condition

and maturity of the operations planned for 2000, as compared to

the situation that existed prior to April 1, 1990? Are we better off?

Worse off? Where do we stand? How does it compare?

Mr. MIHM. In important ways, we are better off and in other

ways we’re about the same. And let me start off in the ways in

which I think we’re a little bit better off.

Certainly, it appears that, at the national level, the Bureau’s recruitment is going better than it did in 1990. They have a paid advertising campaign this time around. Last time, they were relying

on pro bono, which was a bit of a challenge because they were

showing public service announcements at 2 a.m., when people

wouldn’t be seeing them. And, as you discussed with Director

Prewitt at the last hearing, the advertising campaign, as a result,

since it’s paid, is far more sophisticated this time around.

They also have extended the number of partnerships this time

around. They have about 55,000 different partnerships. Of course,

not all of them are as important as those that they have with local

governments.

Where they are about in the same state, however, is that they

are still showing pockets of areas where they have problems in recruiting. And that was an issue that we saw in 1990 and what that

lesson told us is that it is very difficult, once you get behind the

eight-ball, to sufficiently recover. That is, the recruitment problems

build on each other and you end up having staffing problems during the census. We also saw during 1990 that the use of partnerships, while important, was also inconsistent across the country

and it’s something that, as our work now suggests, they’re going to

have a similar problem with this time.

And, finally, I guess a third area where they still have a challenge is that while the quality and the placement of the ads is far

better this time, in my sense, than it was last time, we still don’t

know and the Bureau doesn’t know, whether we have made the

critical link between people being aware of the census and actually

being motivated to respond. And those are the key challenges that

the Bureau faced going into peak operations in 1990. And I see

they’re pretty much the key challenges this time around, as well.

Mr. MILLER. The hiring process is going fairly well, reasonably

well. I recognize, of course, there are pockets of problems. That’s

probably because it was paid advertising, we think. One of the

things you’re not too sure of is what will the overall $100 million

of ad buys, you know, do. I’m a big supporter of the advertising

plans. I’m optimistic that’s going to be a big help. But, at any rate,

that’s kind of encouraging, to some extent, that it’s helping with

our hiring in a full employment economy. I know 1990 was fairly

close to a full employment economy, but not as full as it is right

now.

Mr. MIHM. But not like right now.

Mr. MILLER. So that’s encouraging.

You heard Dr. Prewitt testify that he could not come up with a

contingency plan until he saw which census operations do not meet

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expectations. Is this legitimate? Or do you think a contingency plan

for every major obstacle is truly feasible? And they really do have

a contingency plan, don’t you think? That they don’t want to make

public?

Mr. MIHM. Let me start with the first one and then, hopefully,

I’ll be able to dodge the second. [Laughter.]

The first question about the feasibility of a contingency plan, we

would take a different perspective than the director on that. We

think it is important and it’s also publicly shared this with Congress. We saw during 1990, we saw during the dress rehearsal,

that limiting the amount of proxy data is very, very difficult for the

Bureau. And that it becomes an enormous challenge as operations

are going on, just the natural pressure of ‘‘let’s get out into the

field and get on with subsequent operations,’’ that they need to

step back now and think about how they’re going to control the

amount of proxy information, how they’re going to look at the relationships between mail response and staffing needs and workloads

at a localized level rather than at the national level.

So we think that there is a real need for a looking at a contingency plan.

Now I didn’t mean to be flip about the second part of your question, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know if they have something in-house.

I agree with your opening statement that it was important. Director Prewitt’s statement last week was the first time that I had

heard a public statement from the Bureau that they would be willing to extend non-response followup operations if they weren’t completed in time. In the past, some senior people have been quite adamant with us that they would be done in the 10 weeks and that

was it.

Mr. MILLER. What assurances does GAO have that the Census

Bureau will stay in the field as long as prudent to get non-response

followup work done? I mean, if he said 10 weeks, we can finish in

10 weeks by just using more proxy data.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir.

Mr. MILLER. Is the expectation to use more proxy data because

they are committed to that 10 weeks? If you use 14 weeks, there

will be a much smaller non-response number. Is that going to be

their intention? Is that your impression, that they’re going to just

use more proxy data, which is not as accurate, we all agree?

Mr. MIHM. We hope that the experience of the dress rehearsal is

not instructive in this case, in which they got out of the field on

time or even early, but it appears at the expense of having much

higher rates of proxy information than they had wanted.

One of the critical elements that they need to look at, and then

hopefully would be informing the Congress and keeping the Congress aware of, is that as they are in the field longer, there is more

of a tendency to use proxy data. There is also more of a tendency

for people who they get from the households to either be forgetful

or to not give the correct information. So just being in the field a

long time is not good. The use of proxy information is not good, in

terms of data quality. A careful balance needs to be made and they

need to be looking at that right now rather than waiting until everything is really going on in the census and then on a case-by-case

basis be making those decisions.

32

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m a little confused

about the workload for non-response followups that you talk about

in your report. According to your report, with the expected mailback response at 61 percent, the Census Bureau will have to visit

46 million addresses. You go on to point out that they have to complete interviews with roughly 650,000 households each day. That

does sound like an overwhelming task, but with 500,000 interviewers in the field, that is only 1.3 households a day or 9 a week. That

sounds much easier and very doable. It’s my understanding that

the Census Bureau’s assumptions about productivity is that each

interviewer will complete about 1 household an hour or about 25

interviews a week.

Can you explain to me and to the panel why you believe that it

will be difficult for Census interviewers to complete 9 households

a month and why that is so different from the 25 households a

week in the budget assumptions?

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am. The point we were making in our report

is just that the very scope of the Bureau’s efforts are enormous.

We’re actually making two points.

Mrs. MALONEY. The greatest peacetime mobilization ever.

Mr. MIHM. That’s our mantra. And if there’s ever a bigger one, ‘‘the second greatest peacetime’’ will not ring as well.

The point we were making was that, just as the greatest peacetime operation ever, it’s an enormous challenge and, as you’re

pointing out, that if they make their assumptions on mail response,

if they make their assumptions on workload, if they make their assumptions on staffing, we’re talking 670,000 cases and it will not

be undoable for them. They’ll be able to finish on time or at least

the math works that they’ll be able to finish on time.

However, the second point that we were making is that that is

fraught with a whole series of difficult assumptions or, as we call

them, challenges and uncertainties about whether they’ll make the

mail response; whether they will get the enumerator staffing that

they need; whether people will be willing to cooperate with them

on a sufficient level. Those are all the things that, in our view, at

least raise the concern of risk with the census.

But I quite agree with the point that you were making that the

math, in a sense, works out. That is, if they make their assumptions, they should be able to finish on schedule.

Mrs. MALONEY. You’ve certainly reviewed the Bureau’s assumptions about recruitment, retention, and productivity of enumerators. If you feel the 10 schedule is too short, where are these assumptions in error?

Mr. MIHM. The biggest problem that I think the Bureau will face,

and it gets back to the difference between a national and local examination of the census, is that we know in a percentage of district

offices, that it will take the Bureau much longer than the 10 weeks

in order to finish non-response followup. The last offices to close,

I regret to report, were in the New York regional office in New

York City. Some of them took 14 weeks.

And the challenge, and I know this won’t be news to you, Ma’am,

is that these are also the areas where it is among the hardest to

enumerate. And so you have a snowball, in effect, of interrelated

33

challenges for the census: poor mail response rate, hiring difficulties, high workload, large proxy data, schedule problems. All of

those come together in, not nationally, but in hard-to-enumerate

areas and in enough areas to matter that hamper the overall success of the census.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I read your report carefully. And, based on

your report, I introduced legislation that would create a contingency fund of $100 million for census 2000. And I am hoping that

you’ve had an opportunity to review this legislation and I’d like

your comments. The fund could be accessed if you run into serious

problems. For example, if the mail response rate dropped significantly, a point that you continue to raise. My bill also expands the

labor pool for 2000 census among certain specific groups, another

recommendation you put forward that I followed up on, along with

many of my colleagues, including active-duty members of the military, those receiving certain Federal benefits, and Federal retirees

who have received buy-outs.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. So I really tried to respond to the contingency

that you felt needed to be there by offering this legislation and I’m

wondering about your comments on it. Does GAO endorse legislation? [Laughter.]

Mr. MIHM. Generally not.

Mrs. MALONEY. Even if it’s written mirroring your report?

Mr. MIHM. Well, in this case, the language in the report based

on the staffing was worded, and we were quite careful on this, is

that we understand that there are a series of competing policy

issues with staffing and that’s why we offered it as a matter for

consideration for the Congress.

Similarly, with the part dealing with the contingency fund.

Clearly a lower than expected mail response rate has cost implications for the Bureau. The Bureau has estimated about $25 million

per percentage point. We’ve actually estimated it’s about $34 million per percentage point in direct costs.

Mrs. MALONEY. It all has cost implications.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Even if you go past the 10 weeks, there are cost

implications.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. So any way you look at it, there are cost implications.

Mr. MIHM. And the Bureau has needed supplementals in the

past during the decennial census. The best mechanism for getting

them that money, though, is a policy determination, that is, whether it’s a contingency fund, whether it’s a quick supplemental if they

need it. It is a policy call that we’ll leave to the Congress rather

than engage in.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I have quite a few more questions, but my

time is up.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mihm, let

me ask, if you had to give the Census Bureau a letter grade in

planning and preparation for this undertaking, what would it be?

34

Mr. MIHM. I think that I would give them a firm ‘‘B.’’ I think

that it is unquestioned that they have worked very, very hard

throughout the decade. And I know there’s been quite a contention

that we’ve been involved in as well on the issue of sampling and

the rest, but they’ve worked very hard throughout the decade and

certainly since the court decision to implement the best census that

they can.

One of our continuing concerns is that the census is a national

undertaking under the Bureau’s leadership, but all of us in other

organizations have key roles in making the census successful. That

is a point that Dr. Prewitt made last week. And so, in many cases,

they’re dependent upon local governments. They’re certainly most

fundamentally dependent on citizens to step up. And so, while we

have had and will continue to have, no doubt, some criticisms of,

operationally, how the Bureau is doing, fundamentally, our concerns and the issues that we raise are about things that are really

beyond the Bureau’s control.

The economy, as we’ve been discussing is very, very strong. And,

to the extent that they can get people to work on the census in this

sort of economy, that’s really to their credit. So it’s issues such as

that. So that’s why we can be very concerned about the census and

call it high-risk while, at the same time, I’d give them a firm ‘‘B.’’ Mr. DAVIS. That they’ve done a good job and that the other

things are difficult to really handle.

Let me ask, 10 years ago there were allegations after we finished

that there were people who had been counted twice. Are you satisfied that the likelihood of that happening, in terms of the preparation this time, has seriously diminished?

Mr. MIHM. We know for a fact that there were people counted

twice, as you mentioned, in 1990. It’s every expectation that there

will certainly be a percentage of the people that are counted twice.

It’s what the Bureau technically calls ‘‘erroneous enumerations,’’

that is people included twice, this time around.

I think the key to reducing the level of double-counting is to limit

proxy and get out of the field, as soon as possible. And let me give

you just one number that kind of underscores the issue. People in

1990, people enumerated between January and April, who are basically people that mailed back their census forms and other early

census operations, had an erroneous enumeration rate of about 5

percent. That is about 5 percent of those were double-counted. By

the time you got through August to December 1990, the erroneous

enumeration rate climbed to almost 30 percent.

So, basically, toward the latter part of the year, for every three

people you add, you add one person in error. And that is a real

challenge for the Bureau to control that. So, in direct answer to

your question, we have not looked in detail at the procedures they

have in place to guard against erroneous enumerations this time,

other than to urge them to control proxy data and to get out of the

field as soon as appropriate.

Mr. DAVIS. Would you consider that to be one of the big concerns? I mean, if there are errors made and especially if those errors are made in such a way that some advantage might be given

to populations that really don’t need the advantage, would that not

be a great concern?

35

Mr. MIHM. Certainly. Everything we’ve seen is that the Bureau

does try and limit the level of erroneous enumeration. We join the

Bureau and most others, though, in focusing more often on the differential undercount, rather than the rate of erroneous enumeration, if, for no other reason, because it’s higher and more politically

at issue.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me make sure that I understand that. The double-counting, basically, were individuals who may have owned two

homes or had two residences and may have been counted at each?

Mr. MIHM. That is certainly a part of it. We can certainly get for

the record, to the extent that the evaluation data is available—the

precise breakdown on this, but it would also include people who did

not have a usual residence and may have been captured on two different census forms. The Bureau during 1990 had a coverage improvement program dealing with individuals on parole or probation

that had a very high erroneous enumeration rate as well. But it

certainly includes the group, sir, that you’re talking about.

Mr. DAVIS. And, finally, if there were ways to better handle the

external influences. That is, early on we talked about those influences that the Bureau was not in control of or could not project as

much control of, would you have any recommendations on how to

improve that?

Mr. MIHM. I’m sorry, sir. I’m not capturing, I think, the essence

of your question.

Mr. DAVIS. I mean, for example, the extent of local government

participation. The extent of other agencies being involved in assisting to help make sure that the effort is as widespread, as broadly

based, as we could make it.

Mr. MIHM. Certainly one of the recommendations that we have

made to the Bureau is to have realistic expectations for what local

governments are able to supply. Many of the largest cities have

very ambitious complete count efforts and are really working very

hard and have people with one or two censuses of expertise in this

and know at least as much as the people in Suitland.

However, in other cases, and I think the dress rehearsal experience bore this out, some of the smaller governments, more rural

governments, don’t have individuals with the time or the expertise

or don’t have the resources that they can really devote to the census. Now the Bureau has a longstanding policy that it doesn’t fund

these local efforts, however it hires additional partnership specialists to help out.

We’ve looked at the spans of controls of these partnership specialists, compared to what they were in the dress rehearsal and

they weren’t able to give adequate support in the dress rehearsal

and there are even much greater spans of control now. And so I

think what we’re going to see is, again, it’s this local versus national. We’re going to see a very uneven application of local support

and the Bureau’s ability to get local governments and local communities to support the census, just based on the resources available

at a local level.

Mr. DAVIS. I’m not attempting to put words into your mouth, but

it sounds like you’re saying that, in some instances, if there had

been resources to assist the local entity, in all likelihood, that

36

would have increased the level of participation, which could have

helped to increase, overall, the level of effectiveness.

Mr. MIHM. I think, sir, at a minimum, what the Bureau could

have done is have more of an outreach effort to these local governments. We looked at the notebook that it gave to some of these

local governments and it listed page after page what local governments could do to support the census. There is virtually nothing on

what the Bureau was going to do to support the local governments.

When we were down in South Carolina during the dress rehearsal, some representatives of local governments told us the Bureau came in, they gave us the hats, the T-shirts, and the coffee

mugs. And then went away. And, we need more support than that,

folks. We need the tangible support that you talk about and we

need knowledge. We need to know how to do this sort of stuff.

So more facilitation and hand-holding would have helped, as

well.

Mr. DAVIS. Well, I thank you very much. And I’m pleased to

know that I think at least somewhat like the GAO, because I’m in

absolute agreement with you and I appreciate your response.

Mr. MIHM. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Mr. MILLER. We’ll have another round, too. I was reading the

newspaper on my way back, flying back on Monday, I think it was

in the Washington Journal, about how the city of Detroit is putting

a lot of the resources of the city into it, but I think the city of Chicago is making a specific effort to put their own resources into

making sure of that good count. They’re doing advertising and all

that. So, you’re right, it’s going to be spotty throughout the country, but those that recognize the critical importance, such as Chicago and Detroit in particular, they are putting the effort in there.

I was interested about Mr. Davis’ first question about grading

the Bureau. I’m glad to see the grade. How would you grade the

contingency plan?

Mr. MIHM. Oh, well. [Laughter.]

If I was being charitable, it would incomplete. But that’s just because I haven’t seen it, and so I have no basis to judge at this

point. I mean, the importance of this I can’t stress enough—the importance of making it available or making sure that Congress gets

an opportunity to see what’s going on. Because we know that, as

data collection drags on, there will be enormous pressure to close

out offices and move on to subsequent operations. There needs to

be an understanding of what sort of controls the Bureau has in

place so that we don’t close out prematurely, that is, don’t go to the

proxy data prematurely. We need to understand the tradeoffs between going to proxy data versus staying in the field, both the

tradeoffs in cost and in quality and in schedule.

These are all the things that we think that the Census Bureau

should be willing to talk about and not just say, well, we’ll come

to you if we need more money.

Mr. MILLER. I know that somewhere out there there’s a point of

diminishing returns for census enumerators to stay out in the field

and continuously pound away at non-response followup. I am just

concerned that the Census Bureau may decide to prematurely put

valuable resources into their ACE survey instead of exhausting

37

every available alternative in the field. Would you comment some

more on that?

Mr. MIHM. That is a concern. And, it’s not just a concern in the

sense of ACE, but it’s a concern in terms of any subsequent operation that they would do any of the other additional coverage improvement operations. This would be part of the contingency plan

that I think that they ought to be willing to discuss with the Congress: If we stay an extra couple of weeks in any particular area,

here’s what the cost is in terms of getting in and starting ACE or

it may well be that there is no cost. Certainly there is no magic

requirement that the field work on ACE has to start nationally at

any one period. Just like the census, the ACE is done locally as

well.

So this is the type of issue that they should be talking to the

Congress about and letting you know what are some of the challenges and tradeoffs that they face. And they should be doing this

ahead of time, rather than tell us later that the census is in real

trouble.

Mr. MILLER. I agree. I’m concerned that they haven’t shared with

us a contingency plan. I feel there is a contingency plan. And, as

Dr. Prewitt talked about yesterday—about possibly staying in the

field longer or putting more money into this or how much you pay

enumerators, it’s part of that process. I think as far as money since

it’s over twice as much as the 1990 census, as you point out in your

report, I think there’s a lot of cushion in that money to be able to

move around and shift it to those areas that may need the additional resources to complete them.

But I do have a concern that ACE is driving the close-out procedures, which would sacrifice a full-enumeration census, which

would be unfortunate. And you share that concern, I guess, yes?

Mr. MIHM. It is something that we are going to be looking at

very closely as non-response followup operations get underway, as

to what controls the Bureau has in place when they close out, what

the level of proxy information is that they’re collecting in these last

offices. During 1990, the areas that were the hardest to enumerate

for them, large urban offices, it was not uncommon for them to average 20 percent or more proxy data of their non-response universe

and this is a real concern when you’re getting that percentage of

the population that’s based on proxy.

Mr. MILLER. And the later you get in the field for ACE, the less

accurate ACE can be. If you have to wait 14, 18 weeks, you know,

or whatever——

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. They’re asking people also, just like with

non-response, you’re asking them to recall April 1, in ACE you’re

asking them to recall April 1 as well.

Mr. MILLER. Right. Despite the Bureau’s efforts, the data capture

system may still be at risk. Do you have any suggestions as to anything more the Bureau can do to diminish that risk at this late

date?

Mr. MIHM. Randy’s really the expert on that and I’ll ask him to.

Mr. HITE. I have two responses to that. The first deals with, at

the time that we were looking at DCS 2000, we identified the high

probability that, given the significance of the events that remained

and the nature of the events that remained, relative to developing

38

and deploying DCS 2000, there was considerable risk that everything was not going to get done on time. And, at that time, we

spoke to the Census and its development contractor about how they

could address this and the type of risk mitigation strategies that

would be effective. Both the Census and the contractor were very

responsive to this and, in fact, as we note in our report, put mitigation strategies in place.

What has happened since we’ve done our evaluation has borne

out one of our concerns, which is the type of events that remained,

test events, are events intended to identify problems. That’s what

tests are designed to do; they identify problems. They don’t demonstrate the absence of problems, but the presence of them. And

what has happened as a result of the problems that have surfaced

recently and that we just became aware of this past Friday, is that

in order to address the problems, they’ve decided that they need to

modify the system.

And so here we are at the late stage in the development and implementation process where Census will need to modify the system,

where Census will need to release the software changes, and then

Census will have to test them in the field. And so what they’ve

done is exasperated a risky situation, because the test event will

occur I believe the 22nd through the 25th, when these changes will

be tested. And that will leave you 9 days to address any problems

that the test will surface. And, as I mentioned before, tests are designed to identify problems. Nine days is not a whole lot of time

to deal with problems.

Mr. MILLER. Is there a better data capture project, 119 million

forms, in any other Federal program that can capture that much

data in such a quick period of time?

Mr. HITE. The similar application that comes to mind is the tax

processing systems, because the forms come in within a certain

timeframe and they have to be processed within a timeframe. It’s

heavily manual, but it is also heavily automated, too. That tax

processing infrastructure has been in place for a long time and it’s

really done, as you know, year after year. So, in that sense, it is

a different situation.

But census data capture, in some ways, is analogous to the Y2K

problem because there, too, we had an immutable deadline that we

had to deal with. And what happened was agency efforts were

pushing further and further back up against the deadline. And any

system development, any system maintenance effort, unless you

change requirements and thus reduce the magnitude of the task

that you’re trying to accomplish, the only thing that can give is the

testing process. And what we have here is where testing is the end

of the process, but if problems surface, they will have to be corrected and then retested, again, to make sure that they, in fact, the

system is performing correctly.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. You said that the Bureau needs to, ‘‘limit the use

of proxy data and get out of the field as quickly as possible.’’ So

if the response rate drops below the expectation, would it be better

to keep enumerators in the field beyond the planned 10 weeks or

would it make more sense to put more enumerators in early in an

39

attempt to get the total out there quickly and to get out of the field

as soon as possible? What would be better?

Mr. MIHM. Mrs. Maloney, it would always make more sense for

the Bureau to put as many enumerators in the field as early as

they possibly can. They are going to try and hire well over 500,000.

If they can get 600,000, that’s better. If they can get more than

that, that’s always better. And this has been the Bureau’s traditional position, is that they will say this is how many positions we

have, but if they get two applicants who are qualified, pass the

test, pass the background check, they’ll split a position into two positions in order to get people in there. However, that often does not

happen because of the hiring problems that they have. But, nevertheless, it is always better for them to get as many people in as

possible so that they can get out of the field with as complete data

as possible.

Mrs. MALONEY. Following up on the labor market, you noted in

your testimony that 25 LCOs fell short of their recruitment goals

by 20 percentage points or more. You also note that 163 offices exceeded the 45 percent goal by 20 percent or more. To me, that

sounds pretty good.

I’m curious about two or three things, though. Are there generally any similarities about the offices with recruitment problems?

Are there procedures in place to address the shortfall areas, like

intensified promotion or maybe sharing recruits among different

LCOs, if they are close enough? Finally, are there any recruiting

problems in New York City? [Laughter.]

And, I might add, Chicago or Florida? [Laughter.]

Are we 1 of those 25 LCOs, any of us?

Mr. MIHM. Well, Chicago is one of the three regions that is having the most problems. 25 of its district offices, to each region

there’s usually 40 to 45 district offices, so 25 of its LCOs did not

make the February 1, 45 percent threshold. While New York City

as a region made the threshold, it has had some problems. Eleven

of its LCOs were below the 45 percent threshold. The Atlanta region, which was another one of those regions, unfortunately covers

Florida as well, and there are pockets of problems in Florida.

You asked if there is a consistent lesson, which is a tendency

that urban areas are the ones that have, typically, the hardest

problems recruiting. We saw that in 1990. We saw it in dress rehearsal. We’re seeing it again in 2000.

Among the things that the Bureau is doing is that they are intensifying recruitment efforts. In some locations, they are studying

the possibility of raising some wage rates. Dallas is the region that

has done among the very best in terms of its recruitment. And

while the census is always local, there are some real lessons

learned there going on in trying to replicate some of the lessons

that Dallas has done in terms of its recruitment effort. Apparently

one of the things that a number of the regions have learned from

Dallas is how important it is to really support the regional recruiters and the local recruiters to give them some additional training

and help. And so there is that leverage that’s going back and forth.

Robert, you’re closest to the field. Do you have anything that you

want to add in particular?

40

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Yes, we can talk specifically about this issue.

Let’s first mention some things that are specifically being done in

the Dallas region. Postcard mailings they said have been very helpful. Extensive training of recruiting assistants who enhance the

message of the importance of the census. There’s a lot of activity

going on with the partners. There have been websites set up and

State and local governments have put up websites to assist in recruiting. There’s a 1–800 recruiting hotline. So there have been a

number of procedures put into place to facilitate the recruiting.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. Your report, Mr. Mihm, also says that the

dress rehearsal data suggests that the Bureau’s outreach and promotion program may have only a modest impact on the mail response rate—that the advertising that was done during the dress

rehearsal was extremely minimal and really not very professional—certainly nothing like the very professional program in so

many different languages and nationalities and ethnic groups that

the $100 million-plus campaign now has going. Don’t you think

that this nationwide campaign may have more of an impact than

it did on the dress rehearsal?

Also the activity that I’m hearing from my colleagues, some of

them are organizing marches and handing out literature. One has

developed her own contract that she’s handing out to every constituent: I pledge I’ll fill out my form. My own personal favorite is

the census in the schools. I am convinced if we could meet with

each superintendent and get them to put that into the schools that

that would increase dramatically.

One member had a great idea they shared with me the other

day. The whole CHIP program, the enrollment of children in the

health care plan that is way behind expectations, partnering with

them as they’re enrolling these young people, also enrolling and reminding their parents about the importance of filling out the census form.

Maybe it’s because I’m living it every day. I see all this activity

and all these ideas and I’m more optimistic of generating knowledge and a desire to fill out that form and send it back. But you

are not particularly optimistic in your report, based on the dress

rehearsal. But I don’t think that’s very indicative of what we have

going on in the field now.

Mr. MIHM. We’re hopeful, with you, that all of these additional

efforts will make a difference. And I completely agree. We tried to

capture this in the report, that there is a lot going on for the 2000

census that obviously was not going on for the dress rehearsal.

Mrs. MALONEY. Even an ad during the Super Bowl.

Mr. MIHM. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. The test that everybody remembered. Fill out

your form. Don’t leave it blank. So, I mean, I think there’s a tremendous amount of effort out there.

Mr. MIHM. I happened to be watching the Super Bowl with my

daughter who’s 9 and she picked on why are they having classrooms in the janitor’s closet. Will we have to do this, Dad? We’re

in Fairfax and I said, no, honey, they put you all in trailers out

back. That’s the Fairfax issue. [Laughter.]

Mrs. MALONEY. Your daughter said that?

41

Mr. MIHM. No, I was the one who told her they put them in trailers. [Laughter.]

But she was very concerned. So they’ve hooked into 9-year-olds

at least on this. And so it’s clearly a larger, more persuasive ad

campaign. The unknown, and this was the point that we were trying to make in the report and I think the Bureau is wise in not

saying that, oh, the paid advertising campaign is going to give us

this much of a bump in the mail response rate. What is unknown

is whether we’ve broken that big historical pattern, the difference

between awareness and motivation. We’re certainly hopeful, as is

everyone else, that as people get more aware, this time around

they will be motivated.

But in the dress rehearsal, we had very, very high levels of

awareness in 1990—very, very high levels of awareness—it just

didn’t translate into a mail response. And that’s going to be the

critical juncture.

Now the Bureau’s ad campaign is moving into its second phase.

The first phase that Dr. Prewitt talked about last week was just

awareness, letting us all know that the Census is there. And now

we’re really getting into the intensive motivational part. You noticed the kick-off yesterday and I didn’t get a chance to see the TV

this morning, but I understood there was going to be something

this morning in New York and elsewhere on this.

Mrs. MALONEY. You can’t walk down the streets in New York

and not see a sign to apply for a census job. I mean, it is literally

everywhere. They have it up in stores. They have it everywhere.

Mr. MIHM. That’s great news.

Mrs. MALONEY. I’m really impressed. Maybe they’re doing it just

around my home and my neighborhood. [Laughter.]

Because they know I’m on the case. But, believe me—— Mr. MIHM. We’ll check for you. [Laughter.]

Mrs. MALONEY. I’m really, really impressed. I mean, you see, if

we don’t make it through this next election, we’ll have a job out

there. [Laughter.]

But my colleague has a lot of important questions to ask.

Mr. MILLER. Well have another round, too. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Only one. Actually, I want to get back to the individuals who are homeless, who have no stability in terms of addresses

to followup with. And, given the fact that we’re going to be into

spring, which means the weather will hopefully be good, it really

increases the numbers of people who move about without any place

that they call home or where you can go looking for them to actually find them. Have you seen any evidence of the Bureau’s ability

to reach those people to find them?

Mr. MIHM. Certainly, sir, the Bureau is undertaking a far more

serious effort in 2000 than in 1990. That’s not the right word. I

don’t mean to imply it wasn’t serious in 1990. It’s a far better designed effort this time around. In 1990, they had a single night

that they called S Night in which they went out and they attempted to count people on streets and they went to shelters and

attempted to count people here. This time it is a far more intensive

effort covering a couple of nights in which they’re going to be out

looking for people. We plan to be monitoring that and be prepared

to report back to the subcommittee on how it’s going.

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But, as you know, the thesis behind your question is right on

about how difficult it is to get these people because the challenge

the Bureau faces is that, especially people on the street, is that

many of them don’t want to be enumerated. And, you know, as we

hear each year when, unfortunately, when some people freeze to

death because they won’t even go to a shelter, you can imagine how

difficult it gets, then, to get them to be willing to talk to an enumerator.

And so the Bureau really faces a very, very difficult task in getting the people without traditional housing.

Mr. DAVIS. Well, I’m really pleased to know that because, while

the numbers in many instances may not appear to be that great,

and in some instances they’re not, but in others I think that they’re

quite substantial. And that every effort has got to be made to try

and reach those individuals. Because even when we start talking

about the return of resources, obviously these are the communities

and these are the people who need those resources the most, trying

to help them out of the situations that they’re currently in. And so

I’m very pleased to know that and I thank you very much.

Mr. MIHM. One thing that it’s important that we all keep in

mind, Mr. Davis, is that the Bureau does not release a count of the

homeless population. They release a count of people where they

happen to reside. Some people live in streets. Some people live in

shelters. Some people live in other housing. And they leave it up

to others to, if they wish, to come up with a homeless count on

that.

And the point there is that it is important that we not just take

the number of individuals enumerated in streets or shelters and

automatically assume that that is the total of the Nation’s homeless population. It could be quite larger.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MILLER. We’ll continue the questions. I have a short one. The

61 percent, what is your projection?

Mr. MIHM. Well, we don’t have an actual projection, Mr. Chairman, but let me tell you about the source of a little bit of our concern on that. The Bureau met its mail response rate goals during

the dress rehearsal. They’re always lower for a dress rehearsal. It’s

usually in the 50’s, about 55 percent.

But they met that using a second questionnaire, which, for a variety of reasons, primarily because of public confusion and matching problems, they decided not to pursue for the 2000 census. Now

what they did is that led them to reduce their expected mail response rate for 2000 from 65 percent to 61 percent.

Our point is, and we try to make this clear in the December report, that the bump that they got from this second questionnaire

during the dress rehearsal was actually much greater than 4 percentage points. They got in some cases I think it was between 4.5

or a minimum of 4.5 but it went up to as much as 15 percentage

points in some locations.

And so it’s a real concern to us and we haven’t seen from the Bureau an articulation of: we understand we got a huge hit out of the

second questionnaire. We’re not using the questionnaire. Here’s

how we think we’re going to make up the difference between what

that second questionnaire would have given us.

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Mr. MILLER. Compared to 1990, how many enumerators are they

projecting? Do you know?

Mr. MIHM. They are projecting to hire 500,000—— Mr. MILLER. But in 1990, what was it?

Mr. MIHM. In 1990, they ended up, I think they had positions for

370,000 or thereabouts and ended up hiring, because of turnover,

well over 500,000. I’ll have to get you precise numbers on that, sir.

Mr. MILLER. One more quick question, a question to followup Mr.

Davis on the double-counting issue, is the DCS capable of reducing

that and minimizing that compared to 1990? The computer, as far

as the double-counting? If a college student is counted twice, we

want to avoid that, of course. I think they’re better prepared to do

that. How would you rate their ability?

Mr. MIHM. The reason we were kind of passing the microphone

back here is that it’s not so much a DCS issue. It’s an issue dealing

with their match rules. We have not looked at the match rules this

time around, but we’d certainly be willing to take a look at those

and get back to you with that information.

Mr. MILLER. I was just thinking in terms of being a little more

sophisticated, computerwise, for 2000. They should have a better

ability, I would hope——

Mr. MIHM. They should have.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. To catch—— Mr. MIHM. One would hope, but we’ll have to report back to you

on that one.

Mr. MILLER. Would the GAO be investigating and evaluating the

Bureau’s ACE plans?

Mr. MIHM. Your office has made it clear that, as has Mrs.

Maloney’s, once this hearing is over, they want to sit down with us

and continue discussions that we have begun about what we’re

going to be doing for 2000 and beyond. That is certainly something

that we expect that you and Mrs. Maloney will ask us to look at.

Mr. MILLER. Do you have any idea how far along the Bureau is

in planning for the ACE? And have you any indication as to when

they will have a complete operational plan? And do you feel they

are where they should be on a preparation timeline for ACE?

Mr. MIHM. We haven’t looked at ACE directly in quite some time.

I can report that a couple of weeks ago, the National Academy of

Sciences held a fairly major symposium. I think Dr. Prewitt mentioned it in his last hearing, I know there were members of your

office that were there. The NAS brought in just about anyone who

is anyone on the issues of statistical adjustment, both pro and con.

One of the common themes that I heard coming out of that was

that the Bureau really does need to start locking down some of the

procedures that it’s going to use for the ACE and for adjustment.

I detected a bit of a tone of frustration from some of the experts

there that it’s time for the Bureau to start to move beyond. ‘‘Well,

here’s one option, here’s another option,’’ and actually get into,

here’s what we think we’re going to do.

Mr. MILLER. Please outline the GAO’s plans for future field investigations into the decennial census activity.

Mr. MIHM. I obviously want to stress, sir, that this is subject to

your approval and Mrs. Maloney’s approval. I mean, we work at

the behest of this subcommittee.

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What we have planned to do is to look at—well, we’ve made contacts with people in the regional offices. We’re then going to be

looking at a subset of local census offices, probably in the neighborhood of 20 to 30, somewhere in there. It depends on resources. It

depends on where our colleagues in the Inspector General’s Office

are going to be to make sure that we minimize any disruption and

any overlap and appropriately leverage off of what they’re doing.

And we’re hoping to be—— Mr. MILLER. Does that mean you’ll get to different places or will

you try to go to the same places?

Mr. MIHM. We’re hoping that we can ask a consistent set of questions in different places. We are also sensitive, though, that we also

have different reporting requirements. And this is one of the issues

that we get into with the monitoring board and others is that we

report directly to the Congress. They have other constituencies or

other things that they have to report to.

What we’re going to be doing is looking to get into the field and

visit these local census offices at two points. One within the next

couple of weeks before peak census operations begin. And, second,

as I alluded earlier, toward the end of non-response followup to get

a real sense on how are we doing on close-out; what sort of pressure, if any, is being applied to let’s get out of the field early; are

we doing everything we can to get full enumeration with the final

cases or are we closing up prematurely.

Mr. MILLER. How many people do you have, approximately, assigned or will have assigned to the census issue over these next

couple of weeks?

Mr. MIHM. We’re very fortunate in GAO that we operate using

an approach to matrix management and so it’s, directly, working

full-time on census work, we probably have about eight people, as

well as a couple of—Randy is very kind to devote a lot of his time

and his staff on information technology issues. Colleagues in a different part of the office did the report for you and Mrs. Maloney

on the budget scrub last year and they’ve devoted resources as

well. We’re quite confident that we will be able to meet any requests that you give us.

Mr. MILLER. Let me ask one more question and then I’ll be finished. The 2010 census, are you all looking at—I meant to ask Dr.

Prewitt this—preparing for 2010, running some tests? Are you

looking at that at all or do you have any comments about it?

Mr. MIHM. We will be looking at it. One of the things that I

learned coming out of the 1990 census—or there’s actually a couple

of things. One is the importance of conducting appropriate tests

during a live census that point to the next census. And then the

second thing is the importance of starting early with your census

planning effort. There was a big problem of some controversy here

in that the Bureau’s planning efforts for the 2000 census really

didn’t tee up for Congress a lot of the key issues until relatively

late in the decade, causing the Census Bureau to have to rethink

its approach.

One of the things that the Bureau is exploring—and we’re certainly going to encourage them in this regard. We encouraged them

last time as they were preparing for 2000—is looking at the use of

administrative records. Either to, at the broadest extreme, to help

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with the basic enumeration and to even its subsets, to help with

some of the coverage improvements, to programs to try and look for

missing elements.

One of the highest undercounted groups are children under 5.

And so there are opportunities to use administrative records,

whether it be school records or anything or Head Start records.

There are all sorts of policy and privacy concerns in there. There

are all sorts of technical issues and records matching. But this is

the time in the decade to start thinking toward 2010 for issues

such as these.

Mr. MILLER. I agree. I think, you know, whether it’s the WIC

program—there are a lot of programs—or the Indian reservations

in undercounted areas, there are a lot of administrative records

that I would think could be useful and I know they don’t use them

now except for our military and such. But I am hopeful for that.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Certainly. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the conclusions you’ve reached in this report is that the

Bureau’s estimated 61 percent mail response rate in 2000 may be

optimistic for two reasons. The first is the decision not to employ

a second mailing as was done in the dress rehearsals. And let’s

clarify this please, you’re not suggesting that the Bureau change its

operational plan to include a second mailing, are you?

Mr. MIHM. No, Ma’am. Not at this point, no.

Mrs. MALONEY. But in your report, you suggest that the 6 percentage point reduction and the estimated mail response rate from

67 percent to 61 percent may not have been large enough since

evaluations of the dress rehearsal indicate that it may have been

responsible for a greater percentage of responses than that.

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am. We are not advocating that they go back

to a second questionnaire, in part because we didn’t have the time

to fully evaluate whether or not there was the matching issue in

the scope that they said it would be. But what we were pointing

out in this report is that the second questionnaire gave them a sizable bump in the mail response rate during dress rehearsal. They

took some reduction in the anticipated mail response for 2000. It

doesn’t appear, though, that they took as much as they should

have.

And so our question for the Bureau is, where are we going to

make up the difference? During the dress rehearsal, it gave you 8

or more percentage points. You reduced your 2000 expected much

less than that. Where are you going to make up the difference? And

that’s what our concern is.

The only thing that, and I don’t want to waste your time here,

but the other thing that we wanted to point out is that, for the

Census, it’s only a 1 or 2 percentage point difference that can be

a real challenge. You heard Dr. Prewitt mention that last week,

that he can probably handle 60, 61, but if he starts getting to 59

percent, he gets in a heap of trouble in a hurry. Each percentage

point is another 1.2 million cases. And so we don’t need a catastrophic event, which certainly nobody wants, in order to be in a

very difficult place in a hurry.

Mrs. MALONEY. But, please, you compared results from the nationwide testing which the Bureau conducted into a second mailing

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with the results from the dress rehearsal. Explain how it affected

your analysis.

Mr. MIHM. I’m sorry, Ma’am. The nationwide test?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes. The nationwide testing which the Bureau

conducted, you put that into the second mailing with the results

from the dress rehearsal. Can you put those two numbers together?

Mr. MIHM. What we did is we took it—no, we took the second

mailing—the percentage of households that responded during the

second mailing in the two principal locations, that is the Sacramento and South Carolina. We subtracted out of that, out of

there overall mail response rate, the people that responded due to

a second mailing and got another mail response rate. And rather

than it being in the 50’s, it was typically, therefore, down in the

40’s mail response rate. Again, comparisons between the dress rehearsal and the census must be made with caution.

We got down to a mail response rate in the 40’s and said we saw

where the Bureau had taken a reduction in the anticipated 2000

mail response rate. It was just not equivalent to the percentage

point increase that they got from the second mailing in the dress

rehearsal. Our question for the Bureau was, and remains, is how

are we going to make up the difference? Where does that difference

come from? And, you know, it’s hoped that it will be through the

ambitious and national ad campaign.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. You mentioned in your testimony that the

contractor for the development of the software is Lockheed Martin

and it has been independently rated very highly. Would you elaborate on that, please?

Mr. MIHM. Yes, Ma’am. That’s Randy.

Mr. HITE. The rating that we’re referring to is the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute’s capability maturity model,

which lays out effective practices that a mature software development organization would possess. It rates organizations on a scale

of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest level of maturity. In this case,

Lockheed Martin’s mission systems division, in particular, has recently been rated as a level 5 organization. So it’s a very mature,

very capable, very effective software development organization,

which is a huge plus that the census is doing business with an organization like that.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are many software companies rated as 5? Or is

it unusual to have the higher rating?

Mr. HITE. That’s a lofty group of companies. It is not a large

number of organizations that I am aware of that have obtained

that level of maturity.

Mrs. MALONEY. And how was the contractor selected? Was it

done through competitive bidding or only stage 5 could apply? How

was it done?

Mr. HITE. I do not have that information. I would be happy to

provide that for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

The DCS 2000 contractor was selected through a competitive RFP. A public notice

was published in the Commerce Business Daily. There was no specific mention of

a minimum CMM accreditation level in the RFP.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

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You also said that the results from system level tests show that

the DCS 2000 performance targets are being met. What are some

of those targets? Let’s get something positive out here. The positive

things that have been met.

Mr. HITE. There are a number of performance measures that are

used to measure how well the system is performing. There are

throughput numbers in terms of the number of forms that are

being moved through the sorters and the scanners, for example.

And while the numbers from the tests that were performed at Pomona were below the target levels, and I can provide the precise

numbers for the record, if you’re interested, these tests were also

repeated in the Phoenix test, which was completed recently. The

Census Bureau has informed us that they have exceeded the goals

with regard to both the sorters and the scanners, in terms of

throughput of the number of forms that moved through the system.

Mrs. MALONEY. In your discussion of the data capture system,

you also indicated that the productivity rates observed during operational testing in California, Pomona, CA, were below expectations.

Have you examined the data from the other test sites? And, if so,

what were your results?

Mr. HITE. The numbers for the key from image productivity rates

on the part of keyers were below the model numbers that were expected. And, what has happened as a result of that, is that changes

to the DCS 2000 system have ensued. So, in fact, what they’re

doing is modifying the system so that the workloads that the key

from image keyers would be receiving will be reduced. So here was

a case where, not the system, but the human element of operating

the system was not performing up to expectations. And, to respond

to this problem, the solution has been to modify the system so that

Census will conduct a two-pass read of the forms. And, initially,

they’ll just extract the 100 percent data from the forms and then

the sample data will be collected at a later point in time.

Mrs. MALONEY. I understand that there will be a four-site fullload test of the data capture system next week. Would you explain

what is involved in that test and exactly what you’re looking for?

Mr. HITE. At this test, they will be operating all four centers at

the production levels that they expect during the actual data capture operations. All software, all releases, all hardware will be in

place at all the centers. That’s the plan. Census will be able to simulate actual operations, that is, post March 6 environment when

the data capture centers are to be operational. They will be operating centers simultaneously.

So not only will it be able to test the performance of the data

capture centers, but also, for example, how well the centers are

transmitting data to headquarters so they can monitor how well

data capture operations are proceeding. So it will allow them to

test the full operation of the system in a real-live operational environment as we will have to do during the actual data capture operations.

Mrs. MALONEY. What remains to be tested before everything is

fully operational?

Mr. HITE. As recently as Friday, and I believe actually it was

over the weekend, the final software release, which was software

release 23, was sent out to the field. This software release, along

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with the releases that preceded it, will be tested as an integrated

set, along with some hardware that has been added recently, associated with additional disk drives for storage. These will be tested

from February 22 to February 25 as part of this operational test.

So what remains to be tested is not only the capability that has

been deployed here recently, but also the correction of the problems

that have surfaced as part of the Pomona test. We don’t yet have

all the information from the Phoenix tests or the Jeffersonville

tests to find out what kind of problems surfaced.

But what happens is you do these tests, then you identify a problem and you fix the problem. Then you send out the patches to the

software to correct those problems. Then you test them to make

sure they’re operating correctly. This last test of all four sites will

be testing, hopefully, the completed system in a real-live operational environment.

Mrs. MALONEY. My last question: Where will you be on census

day? [Laughter.]

Will you make sure you’re counted?

Mr. MIHM. Well, we’re going to enumerate before census day.

We’re going to send it as soon as we get the form, Ma’am. [Laughter.]

Mr. MILLER. Two more questions. You tell me the data capture

system is—apparently they’re going to do a two-path system now.

What are the ramifications of that? That the first path will be the

seven questions is my understanding, and then they’re going to

have to rerun all of the long form? Is that right? What are the

ramifications for doing that?

Mr. HITE. You are correct. What they will do is they will still run

the forms through and create the digital image of the short forms

and the long forms. What they’ll do differently concerns the optical

scanning of the marks on the forms and the characters on the

forms. They’ll only run the seven questions, the 100 percent data.

That’s all they will extract. The images, then, will be stored on

some hardware that they’ve recently acquired. And then, later on,

once they’ve completed the data capture of 100 percent data, they

will retrieve the digital images from disk storage and they will extract the sample data from the long forms. That will be submitted

to census headquarters.

There are issues associated with this, one of which is the changes

to the system associated with the retrieval from disk storage, rerunning the images and extracting the data. Those changes have

not yet been made to the DCS 2000. Those are going to have to be

made over the ensuing months. So that’s an issue.

There are also downstream issues in terms of how the two pass,

if at all, affects the processing operations at headquarters. I don’t

know that they do or don’t, but that’s a potential issue. What I suspect is that there could be other issues.

Mr. MILLER. What about the delayed release of all that information? Is that a factor or not?

Mr. MIHM. We’re going to be looking into that, sir. Certainly

much of the information on the long form is required to be collected

by separate statute. And we have our attorneys back at GAO right

now going through that and trying to figure out when that information, by statute, has to be available.

49

Mr. MILLER. Let me ask one more clarification on this second

mailing issue. There’s no question that it’s too late to consider a

second mailing now or even months ago. But 2 or 3 years ago, with

what you know today would your recommendation have been to do

a second mailing if they could have planned for it 2 years ago?

Mr. MIHM. It certainly would have been worth more investigation

on their part. The initial argument that the Bureau made in rejecting a second mailing is they said the public, and they had some

data in South Carolina, was confused by the second questionnaire.

And they held up press articles of people saying they got two census forms. It’s difficult for me to imagine that given as sophisticated as their ad campaign is, they couldn’t have designed a component that says, you’re going to get two census forms. You know, if

you’ve already filled in the first, don’t fill out the second. We all

subscribe to many magazines and the bills say, if your payment

crossed this bill in the mail neglect this.

It was then, later on, though, they began to raise the issue that

they would have trouble matching, because they would just be completely overwhelmed with these second questionnaires. Again, perhaps a sophisticated ad campaign could have reduced the number

of duplicate questionnaires that they would have gotten in and

maybe the matching could have taken care of it. That is certainly

something in the type of the thing that they need to be studying

early in the decade for 2010 and not wait until the dress rehearsal,

which is supposed to be the final operational test, to be rejecting

such a major element of the census.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Let me thank you very much for being

here today. And, as we’ve asked Dr. Prewitt to come and brief us

on a regular basis, I hope you will come back on a regular basis

in these next few months that are critical. So let me thank you

again for everything you’ve been doing on the census.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members and witnesses written

opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so

ordered. In case there are additional questions the Members may

have for our witnesses, I ask unanimous consent for the record to

remain open for 2 weeks for Members to submit questions for the

record and that the witnesses submit written answers as soon as

practicable. Without objection, so ordered.

Thank you very much.

Mr. MIHM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MILLER. Adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis and additional

information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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