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PROGRESS OF REENGINEERED 2010 CENSUS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 24, 2007

Serial No. 110–6

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

(

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

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

——— ———

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

BILL SALI, Idaho

TONY HAYWOOD, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 24, 2007 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Bowser, Robert L., mayor, East Orange, NJ, Vice Chair, Urban Economic

Policy Committee, U.S. Conference of Mayors; Karen Narasaki, president and executive director, Asian American Justice Center; Kenneth

Prewitt, professor, Columbia University, Director, U.S. Census Bureau

(1998–2001); Joseph J. Salvo, Ph.D., director, Population Division, New

York City Department of city of Planning; and Michael Murray, vice

president of programs, Civil Business Unit, Government Communications Systems Division, Harris Corp. .......................................................... 45

Bowser, Robert L. ...................................................................................... 45

Murray, Michael ........................................................................................ 82

Narasaki, Karen ........................................................................................ 48

Prewitt, Kenneth ....................................................................................... 64

Salvo, Joseph J. ......................................................................................... 69

Waite, Preston Jay, Associate Director for Decennial Census, U.S. Census

Bureau; and Mathew J. Scire, Director, Strategic Issues, Government

Accountability Office ..................................................................................... 2

Scire, Mathew J. ........................................................................................ 12

Waite, Preston Jay .................................................................................... 2

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

Murray, Michael, vice president of programs, Civil Business Unit, Government Communications Systems Division, Harris Corp., prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 84

Narasaki, Karen, president and executive director, Asian American Justice Center, prepared statement of .............................................................. 50

Prewitt, Kenneth, professor, Columbia University, Director, U.S. Census

Bureau (1998–2001), prepared statement of .............................................. 66

Salvo, Joseph J., Ph.D., director, Population Division, New York City

Department of city of Planning, prepared statement of ............................ 71

Scire, Mathew J., Director, Strategic Issues, Government Accountability

Office, prepared statement of ....................................................................... 14

Waite, Preston Jay, Associate Director for Decennial Census, U.S. Census

Bureau, prepared statement of .................................................................... 5

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PROGRESS OF REENGINEERED 2010 CENSUS

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND

NATIONAL ARCHIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

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

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Clay, Turner, and Maloney.

Staff present: Tony Haywood, staff director/counsel; Alissa

Bonner, professional staff member; Jean Gosa, clerk; Nidia Salazar,

staff assistant; Jim Moore, minority counsel; Jay O’Callaghan, minority professional staff member; John Cuaderes, minority senior

investigator and policy advisor; and Benjamin Chance, minority

clerk.

Mr. CLAY. The Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and

National Archives will come to order.

Good afternoon, and welcome to today’s hearing on preparations

for the 2010 census.

We will probably be interrupted within the first 15 minutes by

a series of votes on the House floor, so at that time we will recess

and then reconvene.

This hearing is a first in a series of hearings to examine the Census Bureau’s ongoing efforts of conducting a complete and accurate

count of the Nation’s population. With the decennial survey less

than 3 years away, the 2008 dress rehearsal is rapidly approaching. Preliminary testing of new technology and procedure are already underway in two cities. We are at a critical stage of preparations for 2010.

The first census was conducted 217 years ago. Article 1, Section

2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates an actual enumeration of the

U.S. population for the purpose of apportionment of congressional

seats. Information derived from census data is now used to allocate

over $200 billion yearly in Federal financial assistance.

In addition, State and local government agencies, businesses,

academia, nonprofit organizations, and the members of the general

public rely on census data to make informed decisions. Therefore,

it is imperative that the data be complete, accurate, and secure.

A successful census will depend upon combining excellent planning with appropriate execution. The Census Bureau used this formula to improve its overall response rate for the 2000 census.

Many factors contributed to their success, including working more

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effectively with State, local, and tribal governments and partnering

with community-based organizations to reach traditionally undercounted populations.

Still, the Bureau found that there were areas for improvement.

According to Census Bureau estimates from 2000, there were

700,000 duplicate addresses, 1.6 million vacant housing units

misclassified as occupied, 1.4 million housing units not included,

1.3 million housing units improperly deleted, and 5.6 million housing units incorrectly located on census maps. The result was a significant undercount, which prompted Congress to call for an overhaul of the census process.

In 2001 the Census Bureau began the process of developing a reengineered 2010 census. We are here today to receive a progress

report on the implementation of that design.

In conducting census oversight, this subcommittee must also

thoroughly assess the Bureau’s ability to effectively monitor contracts and subcontracts. GAO estimates that $1.9 billion taxpayer

dollars will be spent on seven major contracts. The Bureau must

have mechanisms in place to ensure that these contracts are monitored for cost and quality control.

It is equally essential that minority-owned businesses have a

meaningful opportunity to fully participate in the process. It is imperative the that Census Bureau and its major contractors involve

minority firms in the important work of conducting the survey.

Making a conscious effort to work with minority-owned businesses

will ensure that the 2010 decennial census is truly the most inclusive, complete, and accurate census in our Nation’s history.

We have assembled a diverse and distinguished group of witnesses who can provide credible and authoritative assessments of

the Census Bureau’s reengineered plan for the 2010 decennial census. I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing before the

subcommittee today, and I look forward to your testimony.

Mr. Turner is not here yet, but we will provide him opportunity

for an opening statement when he does arrive.

I would like to get the first panel started. Our first panel consists

of the Honorable Preston Jay Waite, Associated Director for Decennial Census of the U.S. Census Bureau, and Mathew J. Scire, Director of Strategic Issues for the Government Accountability Office.

Welcome to both of you. Mr. Waite, you may proceed.

Let me ask you both to please stand. It is the policy of this committee to swear in all witnesses before they testify, and I would

like to ask you both to please raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Let the record reflect that both witnesses have answered in the affirmative.

Mr. Waite, you may proceed.

STATEMENTS OF PRESTON JAY WAITE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

FOR DECENNIAL CENSUS, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; AND

MATHEW J. SCIRE, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

STATEMENT OF PRESTON JAY WAITE

Mr. WAITE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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On behalf of the Census Bureau, I would like to thank you and

the members of the subcommittee for this opportunity, and would

respectfully ask to submit my written testimony for the record.

Mr. CLAY. Certainly.

Mr. WAITE. Today I would like to focus on a few key points at

this important moment in the decade. We are rapidly approaching

census day. It is now less than 3 years away, and the goals that

we established earlier in the decade are clearly in sight.

The goals of the 2010 reengineered census design are to improve

accuracy, reduce operational risk, improve the relevance and timeliness of long form data, and to contain costs. We are achieving

these goals through an aggressive and comprehensive testing program.

The 2010 census is the best-researched and best-tested census in

our Nation’s history. To that end, with the support of Congress we

have developed a sustained comprehensive testing program in

preparation for the 2010 short form only census. We have conducted key tests each year, beginning with national mail-out tests

in 2003, as well as a second mailout test in 2005, to assess the

questionnaire content and wording. We have conducted major site

tests in 2004 and 2006. In 2004, we conducted a test in the Queens

Borough of New York City and in three counties in southwest

Georgia, focused primarily on using new data collection technologies, including hand-held computers.

We conducted a second major test site in 2006 in Travis County,

TX, and in the Cheyenne River Reservation of South Dakota.

These tests are vital to the success of the 2010 census and have

served as proving grounds for our expanded automation efforts.

Automation is one of the most important elements of the planned

improvements for the 2010 census. We believe it will help us contain costs of field operations, reduce operational risk, and improve

geographic accuracy. We are working with the private sector, Lockheed Martin on the automated data collection contract, and the

Harris Corp. on automating our field data collection. We are striving to use test proven technologies, most notably the use of handheld computers in the field for data collection.

Based on these efforts, we are confident that automation will be

a critical contribution to the overall success of the census. We are

taking the experiences we have gained in our tests into the field

in 2008 for our dress rehearsal. The sites for the dress rehearsal

are in San Joaquin County, CA, and in Fayetteville and nine surrounding counties in eastern North Carolina. We have opened both

these local census offices and have begun hiring in preparations for

the dress rehearsal.

The dress rehearsal is our last opportunity to ensure that

planned procedures and operations tested throughout the decade

will function as designed when you are integrated into a full census

environment.

As I mentioned earlier that census data 3 years away, it is important also to note that census operations actually are underway.

In February of this year, we sent informational letters to each of

the over 30,000 governmental units in the United States outlining

our plans for the local update of census addresses or LUCA program. LUCA is one of the most important partnerships of the cenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sus. Working with local governments, we learn of new housing construction, demolitions, and conversions, as well as map feature updates. These additions to our file are fundamental to a complete

housing use list and the geographic accuracy of the census.

We have made significant improvements to the LUCA program

since 2000. In contrast with the 2000 LUCA program, we are providing more advanced notice, better training, and better instructions. We are conducting LUCA updates prior to address listing,

and participating governments will be offered options to partner

with us, depending on their needs and capabilities. We believe that

this will result in more governments participating, and therefore a

more accurate census.

Finally, in response to congressional concerns, governments will

be given a longer review period, 120 calendar days instead of the

90 calendar days that we had in census 2000. We will also offer

better assistance to local governments to answer their questions

and to gauge their process.

Mr. Chairman, the census is a very large and complex undertaking. The funding is necessarily cyclical in nature and the buildup

is well underway. As has been the case in past censuses, we will

incur major hardships of our funding stream is interrupted by a

continuing resolution later in the decade. Should this be the case

in fiscal year 2008, I would ask for your help to secure special consideration for the Census Bureau.

To reach every household in America requires the success of a

complex series of operations, ranging from LUCA, which enables

the accuracy of the mass address file, to a well-planned integration

of our automation efforts. Everything needs to occur in sequence in

a very short period of time. We believe that we are well on our way

to meet that challenge.

The census is a significant investment in our Nation’s future,

and with your help I believe the 2010 census, with the shortest and

simplest questionnaire since 1790, will be a huge success.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Waite follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for your testimony, Mr. Waite.

The bells have rung, but we are going to take Mr. Scire’s testimony and then we will recess the hearing.

Please proceed, Mr. Scire.

STATEMENT OF MATHEW SCIRE

Mr. SCIRE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be

here today to discuss preparations for the 2010 census.

The Bureau has introduced significant change for 2010, including

using only a short form and relying more on technology to carry out

operations. These changes hold out the prospect of improving accuracy and reducing costs, but they also bring with them the need for

managing the risk inherent whenever making changes to an operation as complex and critical as the decennial census.

Let me start by recognizing the Bureau’s efforts to increase the

response rate for the decennial.

First, by using only the easier-to-complete short form, the Bureau expects to increase response rate by 1 percent. Similarly, the

Bureau expects to increase the ultimate response rate by sending

second surveys to households that do not respond to the first.

The Bureau also plans a public awareness campaign, as it did in

the previous census. This campaign has two major parts: a paid advertising campaign, and a partnership program where the Bureau

works with governments, community-based organizations, the

media, and others to elicit public participation in the census.

Mr. Chairman, one of the most significant changes to the census

is the greater use of automation and technology. This includes the

introduction of the handheld mobile computing device [MCD], that

staff will use to conduct field work. As you know, earlier MCDs

tested in 2004 and 2006 were not reliable. A new device will soon

begin field use as part of the dress rehearsal in parts of North

Carolina and California.

The Bureau relies on this technology and other systems to support key functions. Overall, the greater reliance on contractor-developed automation and technology for the 2010 census calls for

greater focus on sound acquisition and management of these key

investments.

To complete the census, the Bureau recruits, hires, trains the

temporary work force that, at peak, exceeds one-half million. To do

this, the Bureau plans to recruit five times as many applicants

than it hires, and hire twice as many people as it needs, in anticipation of high levels of turnover.

We believe that the Bureau could refine its approach. For example, the Bureau could do more to study the factors that affect worker performance and willingness to stay throughout an operation.

Also, the Bureau could do more to consider past performance when

re-hiring.

We also believe the Bureau could improve its approach to training, which relies on a verbatim reading of training material. Likewise, the Bureau could do more to ensure that training sufficiently

covers key challenges field staff are likely to face. These include

working with reluctant respondents, as well as dealing with local

conditions, such as enumerating in rural areas versus urban areas.

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Finally, I would like to call attention to Bureau plans for enumeration in the Gulf Coast region. The effects of Hurricanes

Katrina and Rita are still visible today. Numerous housing units

have been or will be demolished as a result of the hurricanes and

subsequent deterioration. Conversely, in some jurisdictions there is

new development of housing units. This continuing change in housing unit stock makes it difficult for local governments in affected

areas to assist the Bureau in reviewing address lists as part of the

LUCA 2010 program this summer.

The mixed condition of the housing stock may also affect other

Bureau operations. For example, Bureau field staff conducting address canvassing potentially face challenges of distinguishing between abandoned, vacant, and occupied housing units, as well as

additional temporary housing units. On the other hand, non-response workload could be increased if the Bureau mails questionnaires to housing units that remain vacant on census day.

The Bureau has proposed several changes to the 2010 LUCA program for the Gulf Coast region, including accelerating the timing

of training for affected localities. Bureau plans for addressing the

potential impact on other operations is still ongoing.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, we believe that the reengineering,

if successful, can help control costs and improve accuracy, yet there

is more that the Bureau can do to refine recruiting, hiring, and

training practices, and to prepare to enumerate in hurricane affected areas.

Also, the functionality and usability of the MCD specifically, and

the oversight and management of information technology investments generally bear watching.

As in the past, we look forward to supporting this subcommittee’s

oversight efforts to promote a timely, complete, accurate, and costeffective census.

This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak today. I would be glad to take whatever questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scire follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Scire, for your testimony, and thank

you both for your testimony.

Without objection, we will recess at this time and reconvene in

a matter of half an hour.

We stand in recess until we conclude the votes on the House

floor. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. CLAY. The subcommittee will reconvene.

Let me thank you both for your testimony. Hopefully, we will not

be interrupted for votes between now and the conclusion of the

hearing.

Mr. Waite, you in your testimony mentioned the issue of funding

and partnership. Let me ask you, in 1998 the Bureau devoted a

substantial amount of resources to the partnership program in

preparation for the 2000 census. For fiscal year 2008, the President

did not request any funding for partnership activities. I am concerned that this could have a negative impact on the effectiveness

of census outreach efforts. How much additional funding would the

Bureau need to receive in fiscal year 2008 in order to replicate the

partnership program activities that were carried out in fiscal year

1998 for the 2000 census?

Mr. WAITE. Mr. Chairman, the partnership program is designed

a little bit differently this time, and so we are planning to do more

of our work closer to the census. But, in direct answer to your question, we would need about $18 million in what we call the regional

partnerships to replicate what had happened in 1998. That is not

the administration’s plan right now, but that is what it would take.

Mr. CLAY. Well, if Congress were to appropriate the $18 million,

would the Bureau use them to support partnership program activities in fiscal year 2008?

Mr. WAITE. Absolutely. The Bureau would use whatever money

Congress appropriates for whatever purpose, and we would do that.

Mr. CLAY. OK. If so, what would the activities consist of and how

would they benefit your efforts to achieve an accurate census?

Mr. WAITE. The activities that we did in 1998 involved what we

called regional partnership specialists and regional partnerships

where it would be spent in the field, where people in the regions

would be going around and working with communities and city

groups and other groups that are interested in the census to try to

get them to form complete count committees and some of those sort

of things to get the local communities involved into the census effort. That is the activity that the regional partnerships will do in

2009 for sure. That is the kind of thing they would do—hiring some

individuals to organize and be catalysts for partnership activity out

in the communities.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you. Former Congressman and California

State Senator John Burton, founder and president of the John Burton Foundation, and other interested parties from across the country have expressed great concern about the Bureau’s plan to omit

the foster care question from the short form and the American

Community Survey. Would you please explain as clearly as you can

to the layman’s ear how including either of these questions would

adversely impact the overall response rate?

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Mr. WAITE. OK. Mr. Chairman, I don’t believe that we would be

able to say that it would adversely affect the response rate by including them. We have done a lot of research. We are very concerned about counting everyone, and certainly counting every child

and every foster child in the census. That is our primary focus.

The question in mind is, after we have counted someone, we indicate how they are related to the head of the house or to the person

on line one. In 2000, for the first time we had a separate category

called foster child.

Mr. CLAY. Right.

Mr. WAITE. And the answers that we got from that, frankly, really were not all that good. We got information, but the information

we had was only about 62 percent of the foster children that are

accounted for on an adoption and foster care analysis reporting system that is run by Health and Human Services, where they actually have the rolls of the foster children. It is administrative

records. They follow who these children are.

Our counts nationally were about 62 percent of that. The reason,

primarily, we found as we did research, was that about 20 percent

of foster children are actually in a home and their guardian is a

relative. It might be a grandparent, might be an uncle.

Mr. CLAY. Yes.

Mr. WAITE. And so, even though we would ask them, if you are

the uncle and you say OK, I am person No. 1, and now you have

this foster child, how is this foster child related to you, well, he’s

my nephew, even though he is a foster child, as well. So the core

people were not recording that as foster children. There is also

about 20 percent of the foster children are in group homes where

we don’t know how to ask the question about the relationship to

whom.

Certainly we would be happy to review that with you and talk

about alternatives, but part of our consideration was we are not

very confident about the numbers that we get, 62 percent of what

we think is the national count. I’m not sure whether that is helpful

to people, because it is not 62 percent in every State. In some

States like California it is less than 40 percent, in other States it

is actually over 100 percent, so there is a lot of disparity by States

in our count. So the fact that data is not as good as we might have

thought it was, combined with the fact that we do have a very

crowded questionnaire—I don’t know if you have seen our shortform questionnaire. I would be happy to show it to you afterwards.

But there is a lot of information on the questionnaire.

Those two things caused us to find that we would probably be

better off if we didn’t have that particular category.

Now, the reason for the questionnaire problem has to do mechanically with the fold, but I want you to know that is not the

death issue. We could probably find some way on the questionnaire. I raised the question whether it is really a good idea to collect data that is that far off of complete.

Mr. CLAY. Well, given how important the foster care data is to

providing adequate services for foster children, will you commit to

working with the subcommittee and with interested groups to find

a way to include the foster care question on the short form?

41

Mr. WAITE. I absolutely will commit to working with you, and if

I can’t convince you that what we are doing is right, then we will

find a way to put it on the form.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Let’s look at that.

Also, the 2010 census, for the census the Bureau currently plans

for the first time ever in decennial operations to use mobile computing devices for address canvassing, non-response followup, and

census coverage measurement. In the past, these operations were

completed using a paper only process.

Mr. WAITE. True.

Mr. CLAY. In the 2004 and 2006 tests, the MCD was not reliable

and did not function as intended. What contingency plans does the

Bureau have in case the handheld computer does not function in

the 2008 dress rehearsal?

Mr. WAITE. Well, first let me put that in a little bit of context.

In 2004 and in 2006 the handheld devices that we used were of our

own purchase, and then we built the software. We realized in 2004

that most of the problems were software problems. We weren’t able

to program them well enough for them to perform properly. Based

on that, we began the process to go out and get the private sector,

who had a lot more expertise in that area, to help us.

We now have handheld devices that are being used in the dress

rehearsal that are far superior in many ways. You can probably

talk to the person from Harris who is, I think, on the next panel.

They are far superior to the ones that we were using in 2004 and

2006. They are better programmed, they are faster. We have had

pretty extensive tests on making them work. I am very confident

that they are going to work properly in that test.

Mr. CLAY. How accurate are they now? I mean, do they actually

record the address of a building?

Mr. WAITE. Yes, they do.

Mr. CLAY. And how does it deal with——

Mr. WAITE. And they record the address and also the GPS coordinate of that building.

Mr. CLAY. OK. How does it record all the addresses in an apartment building?

Mr. WAITE. It doesn’t individually record the GPS coordinate of

the individual apartments, but, just like we did with paper, you

would go inside the building and you would indicate the apartment

numbers on the handheld device, just like you would on a piece of

paper. We get one GPS coordinate for that building, but you would

get the individual addresses in that building just the same way you

did with paper.

It is actually quite a bit better than paper, because now you already have it automatically in your files. When we did the paper

lists we had to then send them somewhere and key the results,

which oftentimes had quite a few errors associated with them.

Mr. CLAY. What percentage of success would you give the

handheld, compared to your computers? What percentage of success?

Mr. WAITE. I think I could say that virtually all of the problems

that we experienced in 2004 and 2006—they were problems of

transmission, they were problems of speed, how quickly did the

42

machines turn around. All of those problems have been corrected

by the new machine.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for your responses.

Mrs. Maloney, you may proceed.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the witnesses and thank you for your testimony. Mr. Waite, I was concerned about the lack of money, the $22 million that OMB requested from the partnership from OMB. Cutting

that out just doesn’t make sense to me whatsoever. I am very concerned about it. I would say that one of the key reasons that the

2000 census was better than the 1990 census was because we had

this partnership, and I believe it is short-sighted and, if left uncorrected, will damage the government’s ability to do a good census in

2010.

I would really like to quote from Don Evans, the former Commerce Secretary and Bush-Cheney campaign chairman, and a man

with, I would say, impeccable conservative credentials, and he said

this before the Senate Commerce Committee. ‘‘Partnerships,

140,000 in all with State, local, and tribal governments, community

and advocacy groups, the private sector, religious organizations,

educational institutions, and the Congress were key to building

support and removing obstacles to participation in the census.’’ So

do you agree with Mr. Evans’ statement?

Mr. WAITE. Absolutely.

Mrs. MALONEY. Then why is this $22 million cut out of your

budget?

Mr. WAITE. We have a plan for partnership activities in 2009 and 2010. There isn’t plans for that kind of work. It was actually $18

million. I think there may have been a misquote of the number

when——

Mrs. MALONEY. So $18 million. How did it get removed? Did you

request for it to be removed? OMB asked for it. How did it get out

of your budget?

Mr. WAITE. We ask for a lot of things in prioritizing the census.

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes.

Mr. WAITE. From the various places of the census, we have a lot

of issues that we would like to do. Invariably, there needs to be a

priority setting of things that are more or less important. I think

I can say that spending money on partnerships in 2008 was not a

higher priority than anything in the census that we already had.

Mrs. MALONEY. But you are going to spend money in 2009 and

2010——

Mr. WAITE. Absolutely.

Mrs. MALONEY [continuing]. In the partnership?

Mr. WAITE. Absolutely.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, how do the preparations for the 2010 census compare to a similar point in time in advance of 2000?

Mr. WAITE. You mean for the partnership program?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes. No preparations at all.

Mr. WAITE. Well, preparations in all, I think this census is far

advanced from where we were in 2000 in 1997. We are much better

organized. We have tested our procedures a lot better. We are a

long way ahead of where we were 10 years ago. The partnership

program——

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Mrs. MALONEY. Specifically, where are you ahead than where

you were in 2000?

Mr. WAITE. We are a long ways ahead. We have an organized

LUCA program, a local update of census addresses. If you recall,

last time we were trying to play catch-up with it in 1997 and 1998.

We sent materials to communities that they weren’t ready for, they

couldn’t understand very well. We didn’t have very good participation.

In contrast with that, we now have already mailed out the invitations to be involved in LUCA to all the 39,000 governmental

units. We have a plan where we will do the LUCA in advance of

address listing so we will have a clean way of verifying it. We are

a long way ahead on that process.

On the budget process we are a long way ahead. In 1997 we were

in chaos on the budget, not knowing where we were going and

what we were going to do. We now have that in control and organized.

If you recall, and I’m sure you do, back in 1997 we were still trying to decide which of two tracts we might take in the census, and

that was very, very difficult to try to run down two roads at the

same time. I think we have a clear vision of where we are going

now, how we are going to get there.

We have tested the procedures that we are putting into the census better this time, thanks really to the support of the Congress

all during this decade, by far better than we have done in any census previously. I think we are way ahead.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, what advice would you give to Congress in

how we can help make the 2010 census better than the 2000 census? What can we do to help you?

Mr. WAITE. I think the biggest thing that you could do to help

me, the biggest thing I worry about as I look down the road at the

bogeymen that are coming, I think the biggest thing that I worry

about is the continuing resolution at the end of this fiscal year. Our

budget for 2008 is double what it was for 2007.

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes.

Mr. WAITE. We cannot go any distance at all into fiscal year 2008

with 2007 spending without sort of derailing the train. That is the

thing I worry about a great deal, that whatever resources the census is going to get, we need to get them early in the fiscal year so

that we can keep moving.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. My time is up.

Mr. WAITE. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney.

Mr. Scire, let me ask you, GAO recommends that the Census Bureau better target its recruiting and hiring for the characteristics

of employees who are successful at census work and less likely to

leave census work before an operation ends. What prompted this

recommendation?

Mr. SCIRE. Mr. Chairman, we just completed a study that we

have been working on over the last year looking at recruiting, hiring, and training. The reason that we looked at that is because it

hasn’t been something looked at often before, and also because it

represents a significant cost to the overall census. So that is what

prompted the work.

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Mr. CLAY. If implemented, what impact do you believe the recommendation will have on recruitment and hiring for the 2010 decennial census?

Mr. SCIRE. The reason that we made the recommendation was

that we thought the Bureau could gain certain efficiencies in its recruiting process, and also in its operations. At peak force, the census has half a million people that are working in the field. If they

are earning, on average, $10 an hour, that means it is a $5 million

an hour operation.

So to the extent that you can attract people that are going to be

more effective at the work, and also those that are going to stay

throughout an operation, you can save some number of hours of the

operation. You could also reduce retraining for individuals that are

joining the operation after others have left, or even training some

at the outset that are not likely to continue throughout an operation. So we really looked at it in terms of efficiency of the recruiting process, as well as the efficiency of operations.

Mr. CLAY. In your written testimony you state that the Commerce Department has expressed reservations about implementing

the recommendations GAO made for refining the Department’s recruitment and hiring strategies for the 2010 census. What impact

do you believe that this will have on the recruitment?

Mr. SCIRE. Well, I think that the Department expressed reservation largely because it does not want to be in a position where it

has insufficient numbers of people to conduct the census, and we

recognize that concern. That is why what we are talking about is

not a major change in their operations, but rather a refinement.

So we think that by doing the analysis which would permit them

to identify those who are more likely to do well with the work and

to stay throughout an operation, that they could reduce their cost

in terms of recruiting and hiring. That, I think, is the ultimate outcome that we are looking at.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

GAO’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s figures on the average

cost per housing unit for the decennial census concluded that the

cost has increased from $13 in 1970 to a projected $72 for the 2010

census. That is in constant dollars for the fiscal year 2000 and

amounts to a $59 increase per dwelling over 40 years. Over the

same period, the overall mail response rate declined from 78 percent to 64 percent, as you reported. Some of this may be due to

changing lifestyles of the population, namely people becoming more

mobile. If you factor in the changing characteristics of the population, how would you rate the Bureau’s efficiency in conducting

the decennial census?

Mr. SCIRE. Well, I think we can say that the Bureau faces a

daunting challenge, and particularly with trying to reach a population that is increasing reluctantly to respond. We have said before that we think that the reengineering is a positive thing, that

this is something that has both objectives of controlling costs and

also increasing accuracy.

So we look at the reengineering as something that will help ameliorate the trend that you see in terms of what it costs per household to enumerate.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for your response.

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Let me thank both members of the panel for your responses to

the questions. Believe me, this will be the first time but it won’t

be the last that you will be before this committee. I look forward

to working with both of you. Thank you very much.

Mr. WAITE. Thank you.

Mr. SCIRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. We will take the second panel.

It is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Our second panel today consists of five distinguished witnesses.

We will go in this order, first with the Honorable Robert L. Bowser,

mayor of East Orange, NJ, and vice chairman of Urban Policy

Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Second will be

Karen Narasaki, president and executive director of Asian American Justice Center, on behalf of the Leadership Conference of Civil

Rights.

Then we will have the Honorable Kenneth Prewitt, professor of

Columbia University and former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau from 1998 to 2001. Then we will have Dr. Joseph Salvo, director of the Population Division for New York City Department of

City Planning, and Mr. Michael Murray, the vice president of programs, Civil Business Unit, Government Communications Systems

Division for Harris Corp.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming to day.

Mayor Bowser, we will begin with you. Please proceed.

STATEMENTS OF ROBERT L. BOWSER, MAYOR, EAST ORANGE,

NEW JERSEY, VICE CHAIR, URBAN ECONOMIC POLICY COMMITTEE, U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS; KAREN NARASAKI,

PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASIAN AMERICAN

JUSTICE CENTER; KENNETH PREWITT, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (1998–

2001); JOSEPH J. SALVO, PH.D., DIRECTOR, POPULATION DIVISION, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CITY OF PLANNING; AND MICHAEL MURRAY, VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMS, CIVIL BUSINESS UNIT, GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS DIVISION, HARRIS CORP.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BOWSER

Mr. BOWSER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Robert Bowser,

mayor of the city of East Orange, NJ, and I currently serve as vice

chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Urban Economic Policy

Committee. I appreciate this opportunity to appear on behalf of the

Nation’s mayors to share our views on the 2010 decennial census.

Before I go any further, I would like to commend you, Chairman

Clay, and also Ranking Member Michael Turner, for your leadership on this subcommittee and your sensitivity to local concerns.

We appreciate your support for local governments.

As mayors, we come to the census. We believe when it comes to

the census nothing is more important than a fair and accurate

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count of all the people residing in our cities. In a broad sense, the

decennial census is the cornerstone of our democracy.

The central message I want to leave with you today is that it is

critical that Congress provide full funding of the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure accuracy and cost effectiveness in planning and conducting the next census. For the past several years, the Census Bureau’s budget has been vulnerable to amendments on the House

floor. Members seeking money for other worthwhile projects, such

as law enforcement, anti-drugs, and community policing, have seen

the census funds as an easy target since the census budget is rising

so quickly and significantly in preparation for the 2010 census.

During the 109th Congress, the House passed an appropriations

measure that would have cut Census Bureau funds by $58 million.

This cut threatened to disrupt the Census Bureau’s implementation of the American Community Survey, which is designed to replace the traditional long form and provide more accurate and

timely data.

To serve as a reliable replacement to the traditional long form,

the American Community Survey must collect data from the entire

population, including people living in group quarters such as college dorms, nursing homes, military barracks, and prisons. To offset the cut, the Bureau said it would have to eliminate group quarters from the American Community Survey. The Bureau also announced that the cut would force it to abandon plans to use GPSequipped handheld computers needed to gather data information

from unresponsive households. This would be unfortunate, because

the new technology will save the Census Bureau an estimated $1

billion in the long term by eliminating the costly reliance on paper.

Fortunately, Mr. Chairman, following the November elections

last year the new leadership in Congress restored full funding for

the census in the fiscal year 2007 spending bill. This will allow the

Census Bureau to fully implement the American Community Survey, as well as continued development of the GPS-equipped

handheld computers.

For the new fiscal year, the Census Bureau has requested $797

million to continue preparing for the 2010 census. The new request

amounts to $285 million increase over the current fiscal year and

would allow the Census Bureau to continue census planning, testing, and development activities.

One of the key elements in assuring a fair and accurate census

count is starting with the accurate address list of all housing units

and group quarters within each community. In 1994, Congress

passed the Census Address List Improvement Act to facilitate cooperation between the Census Bureau and local governments to improve the census address list. The Census Bureau operationalized

the law in a program it called local update of census address

[LUCA].

The congressional intent of the Census Address List Improvement Act was two-fold: first, Members believed that by drawing on

the knowledge of local officials the Census Bureau would improve

the quality of the address list; second, they believed the local government officials would have more confidence in the quality of the

address list if they were active participants in the process and had

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the opportunity to review the address list for their jurisdiction before the census.

We agree, as mayors, with the congressional intent of the Census

Address List Improvement Act and we are eager to work with the

Census Bureau to improve upon the process started for the 2000

census.

Many of the problems from the 2000 LUCA program can be resolved by bringing local government officials into the process earlier, committing greater resources to the address list process, and

increasing education so that local officials and Census Bureau employees understand their shared goals.

In preparation for the 2010 census, the Census Bureau is making

a number of changes to the LUCA program that will be tested in

the 2008 census dress rehearsal. Among the changes, a single review cycle for all address types will replace the multiple-cycle review used for the 2000 census. The review period will also be extended from 90 days to 120 days, and designated local governments

will be given two opportunities to review and provide feedback on

the address lists for their area. They will also have the opportunity

to repeal the results.

For mayors, the LUCA program is a very important step in ensuring a fair and accurate count in 2010. Unless we establish a

complete and accurate address list in each community, it will be

close to impossible to ensure the accuracy of the next census.

Again, the key to ensuring the successful implementation of

LUCA is adequate funding that will allow the Census Bureau to

conduct timely training, review LUCA submissions, 100 percent

canvassing after LUCA submissions are incorporated, and allow for

timely second chance review by local governments before the master file is finalized.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Mayor, may I ask you to summarize, please?

Mr. BOWSER. I will speak of local.

Mr. CLAY. OK.

Mr. BOWSER. Mr. Chairman, because the program is so important, I directed my staff at home to develop a Census 2010 Review

Committee to ensure oversight of our involvement in the LUCA

program. We have input from our Department of Planning, Property and Maintenance, Code Enforcement, Public Works, Water Department, Tax Assessor’s Office, and Mayor’s Office.

Some of the major concerns we share are to make sure we receive a complete count of all new housing units, receive a complete

review of all census tracts and population centers, receive a complete count of local mental health institutions, receive a complete

count of our tenant population, and develop promotional materials

targeting our Caribbean population to encourage them to participate, involve community-based organizations in our various neighborhoods to encourage participation.

The other thing is, this program, we need strong leadership crucial for the final years leading up to the 2010 census. As the Census Bureau shifts from planning to preparations, the current director Lewis Kincannon announced his resignation in November. Unfortunately, the administration has not nominated anyone to replace him. We feel the nominee should be a strong manager with

highly respected scientific credentials and no political baggage that

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can affect the Census Bureau’s reputation as a nonpartisan statistical agency.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I should have mentioned that each witness should summarize

their testimony in order to expedite, because the committee has

every statement.

We will begin now with Ms. Narasaki. Perhaps you can summarize. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF KAREN NARASAKI

Ms. NARASAKI. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also appreciate this opportunity to come before you and share with you the Civil Rights

community’s interest in census 2010.

As you know, I serve as Vice Chair of the Leadership Conference,

which is one of the oldest and strongest national coalitions of civil

rights groups. My organization co-chairs with NALEO, its civil

rights task force, and for census 2000 Asian American Justice Center led the effort to educate the Asian American community.

I want to tell you we share with the chairman our concern about

the lack of funding for the partnership programs. We believe that

this census will be even more difficult to get people to cooperate

quickly. We have, since 2000, growing immigrant communities and

growing diversity of languages. We have had growing concerns

about privacy, and also the crackdown on immigrants that has occurred since 9/11 has driven many people into the shadows. It is

going to take much more effort with community-based organizations to get the same count, much less to improve the count that

we had in 2000.

As you know, while we made progress in 2000, we still had a differential undercount of minority communities, which hurt certain

cities and rural communities even more. These partnerships are

really critical to making sure that minority communities really understand what the census is for, why you can trust the Bureau,

what the privacy rules are, and how to participate quickly. And it

pays for themselves, because, as the Census Bureau will tell you,

every person that they don’t have to do followup saves them enormous funding, so it is actually an investment that is effective, not

just an expenditure.

We disagree with the statement that it is not important for the

partnership program to be funded in 2008 because the reality is it

takes communities a lot of time to ramp up for the census. One of

the things that we found was those communities who put additional funding into the outreach did a better count than those that

waited too long. This outreach program is important to get the

community-based organizations advocating with their local governments to make sure that they are putting more money into outreach, and also building these effective complete count committees.

We do not think that we can wait for 2009 and 2010 in order to

have the kind of foundation we will need to make that program

fully effective.

We are also concerned about the language assistance programs.

We believe the Bureau has made great strides, and particularly for

Spanish, but we think they are not giving enough lead time in

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order to do the many other languages, at least the largest other

languages. We found that, for community-based organizations to

work effectively with the census, translations are key, and even the

word census can be translated many times in different ways in different languages. So we need to have the Census Bureau settle on

their translations early so that the community-based organizations

and ethnic media know what the vocabulary is going to be so that

they can be consistent in their outreach and education and not

cause confusion in the community.

We also believe that there needs to be more funding put into the

advertising campaign. That is, again, a campaign that will pay for

itself, because the more people who again mail in immediately and

do not require expensive person-to-person followup, the more

money the Bureau saves.

In 2000 the advertising campaign really helped, we think, improve, particularly for minority communities. We think that more

money needs to be put in this, and particularly for the Asian community, which has to advertise in many more languages than some

of the other communities.

We hope that you will look at that with the Census Bureau.

We also want to comment briefly on the content determination.

There was, again, a review of the racial categories. We believe the

Bureau made the correct determinations on the race and ethnicity

questions based on the research it conducted. We were concerned

that the research methodology did not offer samples so as to really

accurately measure the effect of the different forms of questions on

the small populations, specifically the Pacific Islanders and the Native American communities, but we believe it is too late now to

change any question in terms of the race question, because we

know that even minor changes can vastly affect in unexpected

ways the count of various minority communities.

Finally, it is important for me to note I share the mayor’s concern about the American Community Survey. We are very concerned that there is not enough attention being paid on the language access and language outreach for this important survey. As

you know, it replaces the long form, which provides very rich detail, much needed when looking at poverty and housing and other

concerns that minority communities have. Yet, we feel that there

is a significant undercount of small populations, and so we hope

that is something that you will consider having a longer hearing

on subsequently.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Narasaki follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Mr. Prewitt, please.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH PREWITT

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for this

opportunity.

With your permission, I will focus on the oversight process more

than the particularities of the census, itself.

I would like to start with three principles. I would urge that the

subcommittee work with the Bureau to maximize public cooperation. That is obvious. On the other hand, we sometimes forget that

there is no such thing as a national statistical system without the

public engagement of the American people. That is, statistics are

nothing more than the aggregation of millions of Americans honestly and voluntarily checking boxes, filling in forms, and answering questions.

Research conducted after census 2000 documented that the partnership program, the advertising program was enormously successful, certainly reaching into the minority population, in particular,

as was just stressed by Karen. I conducted some of that research,

myself, and with the permission of the chairman I would like to

put into the record a summary of some of that research at the end

of the hearing.

Mr. CLAY. Without objection.

Mr. PREWITT. Thank you very much.

The second thing I would mention by way of a basic principle is

to ensure that the purposes of the census are explained to the

American people. The decennial census is a nonpartisan starting

point of a process that initiates a chain of events that moves from

elections to representation to legislation, and the census is a marvelous teaching opportunity to explain to the American people the

basics of our representative democracy, and I would hope that the

advertising partnership program can make that one of the central

messages.

The third principle, of course, is to ensure the highest quality results feasible. A census that is poorly conducted reflects unfavorably on the Government’s ability to discharge a major constitutional responsibility. If well conducted, it signals to the public that

the Government can effectively carry a large, complicated, and expensive task on schedule, on budget.

The subcommittee does not have to worry about whether the professionals at the Census Bureau want a quality census or will work

endless hours to ensure that outcome. It does not have to worry

about the intentions of the Bureau, but it does have, nevertheless,

to exercise its oversight responsibilities in determining whether

census operations are working as planned and whether the Bureau

has the staff and financial resources to execute its plan.

So I would like to suggest a sort of theory, if you will, of how to

approach the oversight responsibilities as follows: First, similar to

today’s hearing, what we would call sort of hearings on design

issues to bring in outside voices so that the subcommittee has a

high level of comfort with the design that the Census Bureau was

going to implement. In 2000 we did not have the benefit of that

high level of comfort between the Census Bureau and this subVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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committee, and that hurt the census. I would hope under your

leadership that you would reach that high level of comfort with the

program at the Census Bureau, even as some of the earlier questions to Mr. Waite suggested, working on particular questions or

what have you.

But at a certain point the design has to be locked down. Beyond

this point it is actually counterproductive to try to use the congressional oversight to fine-tune census operations at that moment I

would suggest that the next major thrust of the oversight process

would be to ask whether the Bureau has the resources, personnel

and financial, to execute the plan that has now been agreed upon

with the subcommittee.

We remind ourselves constantly that the census cannot be postponed if there are funding delays. The Bureau has no choice but

to proceed with optimal operations, as Jay Waite just mentioned.

One thing that you want to stress, I think, in the second phase

of the oversight hearings is whether the Census Bureau has in

mind a Plan B if Plan A encounters troubles. For that there will

have to be some contingency funding. No census can proceed on the

assumption there is not going to be some unexpecteds. There will

be unexpecteds, and it will take some sort of cushion to allow the

Census Bureau to be quick and effective in responding to that.

Finally, then, I would think that the congressional subcommittee

under your leadership would turn to implementation issues. As the

operations commence, hearings should be guided by one overriding

question: is the census on schedule, on budget. It is the no surprise

principle. No one wants a failed census, as the 1990 census was

sometimes called, not the Congress, not the Census Bureau, and

certainly not the American people. The only way to guard against

this low possibility is for the subcommittee to focus on major problems that threaten the successful implementation of the agreedupon design and to take necessary corrective action.

The census proceeds against a relentless calendar. April 1, 2010,

is the fixed census day, and a short 9 months later is the deadline

for the first and most important deliverable, the State-by-State reapportionment counts.

Already I have no doubt Census Bureau leadership is anxious

about those looming dates, every day asking themselves are we on

schedule, are we on budget. I invite the subcommittee to constantly

ask that question.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prewitt follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much for that expert testimony. I appreciate it.

Dr. Salvo, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH SALVO

Mr. SALVO. Chairman Clay, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I

want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about some very important census issues. I would also like to extend a thank you to

Congresswoman Maloney for her support.

The decennial census is all about accuracy. First and foremost,

accuracy is based on the quality of the address list that is used by

the Census Bureau to mail questionnaires to most households in

the United States. This is because it is not only important to be

counted, but to be counted at a specific location, the right place.

For most households in the United States, census questionnaires

are mailed to exact addresses. An exact address is a location with

a number, street name, and apartment designator. Names are not

used to mail census questionnaires. The entire census operation is

based on an assumption that the list of exact addresses in what is

called a master address file will tie a questionnaire to a specific

household, to a specific housing unit. Moreover, when a household

fails to respond, these exact addresses become very important in

determining locations for field workers to go so that they can obtain responses.

While the Census Bureau has worked very hard in trying to update the master address file over the last few years, the fact is that

real conditions on the ground have outpaced their capability, their

capacity to keep the address list current in many areas. New construction, conversion of buildings from non-residential to residential use, garages that get converted to residences, attic and basement apartments, building subdivision, all of these things affect

their ability to capture units.

Fortunately, as you have heard, we have the local update of census addresses program [LUCA] program. A common activity in the

LUCA program involves receipt of a file, the actual nest or address

file from the Census Bureau by the local government, and that file

is compared to locally derived lists. These lists can be from E–9–

11 addresses; residential water, sewer, utility accounts; records of

real property for tax purposes; construction permits; certificates of

occupancy. The list goes on.

The Census Bureau is currently conducting LUCA promotional

meetings throughout the country in an effort to encourage participation. While the Census Bureau’s efforts are admirable, our experience with the program indicates that the Bureau has not allowed

enough time up front for localities to prepare. Technical training

needs to begin several months before delivery of the files to localities so that they can compile and format their data to allow for

efficient comparisons in the allotted time. The LUCA program,

while important, is only part of the answer to the problem of compiling an accurate address list and achieving an accurate count of

population. This is because of incomplete or absent labeling of

apartments, the basement or the attic with a tenant, the extra tenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ant in the garage, the one-family house that has been subdivided

into three apartments.

There is an illustration, a picture at the end of my written testimony labeled illustration one that gives an example of such a property. Labels are usually not obvious when field workers conduct

their canvassing operations before the census, and even when these

apartments are obvious, rules do not exist on the use of labels.

Most important, the absence of apartment designators means that

many of the housing units will not be captured in the census because questionnaire delivery by the Postal Service is compromised.

In many places you have a single mailbox, tenants sort their own

mail, mail is sorted by a letter carrier using names. These are options that are not captured by the delivery of census questionnaires. Illustrations two and three in my handout give you some

examples.

Since questionnaires do not include names when they are mailed,

the Census Bureau relies on the link to an apartment number to

connect the housing unit with the questionnaire. The bottom line

is that in many neighborhoods accurate labels do not exist. This deficiency means that the math is inaccurate in many places because

it does not reflect all the addresses that exist.

For more than 2 years, the Census Bureau has been conducting

research on alternate methods to count people in small, multi-family buildings where apartment numbers are confusing or non-existent. We all have a responsibility to provide the Census Bureau

with information, but the Census Bureau needs to use a new procedure—a procedure that they actually have used before but it would

be new in these areas—called update enumerate, where census

workers walk around blocks with their address list in hand, knock

on doors, update addresses, and count the persons behind those

doors, with a set of rules regarding how to label apartments.

Because the 2010 census will only include a handful of questions,

we have the short form only census, it should be easy to do this.

Congress should encourage the Census Bureau to identify and target neighborhoods with a preponderance of these non-traditional

addresses and implement what are called update enumerate methods.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Salvo follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for that.

Ms. Narasaki, I understand you have to be excused. You may

leave. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Ms. NARASAKI. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. You are welcome.

Mr. Murray, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MURRAY

Mr. MURRAY. Good afternoon, Chairman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Hello.

Mr. MURRAY. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the

role of Harris Corp. in supporting the Census Bureau in ensuring

the success of the 2010 decennial census.

As vice president of programs for Harris Corp., I am responsible

for the successful execution of the MAF/TIGER program, which integrates topological data and the field data collection automation

program [FDCA].

Harris is proud that both program teams are performing extremely well in support of the Census Bureau’s decennial count.

Our overall progress to date gives me confidence that the 2010 decennial census will be the most accurate, most complete, most costeffective, and most secure census ever.

The field data collection program was awarded to Harris Corp.

in April 2006. In partnership with the Census Bureau, we have, in

our opinion, made tremendous progress. Program performance is

on plan. The FDCA program provides the automation support, including hardware, applications, and infrastructure necessary for

the Census Bureau to collect high-quality data in an efficient and

cost-effective manner for the 2010 decennial census. Harris has developed an architecture for FDCA that is low risk, modular, flexible, scalable, and utilizes proven technologies and commercial offthe-shelf products to the maximum extent possible.

The program architecture integrates wireless technology, GPS,

and information technology in order to provide a highly available

support structure to census field operations. It maintains data integrity, accuracy, and security.

Multiple overlapping security measures are provided for IT and

telecommunications throughout the FDCA enterprise to protect

title 13 data. Some specific security features include fingerprint authentication, password authentication, automatic data encryption

during storage, encrypted data transmission over a private network, firewalls, virus protection, and a kiosk feature that limits the

device for only FDCA use.

Harris has successfully completed the design, development, and

formal test and implementation effort for dress rehearsal address

canvassing operations as planned. We have deployed the office

equipment and application software necessary to support next

month’s dress rehearsal address canvassing operations. Harris has

deployed nearly 1,400 handheld computers and established the

FDCA infrastructure, which includes a help desk, a network operations center, a security operations center. This system supports

operational activities at Stockton and Fayetteville local census offices and the Charlotte and Seattle regional census centers.

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We have initiated the engineering efforts associated with the

next two significant dress rehearsal operations, automating paperbased operations and non-response followup.

I would like to thank the members of this committee for the invitation to testify. Harris Corp. appreciates the opportunity to share

with you the successful completion of key FDCA milestones and

our plans for moving forward to ensure the 2010 decennial census

is the most comprehensive, most accurate, most cost effective, and

most secure census ever.

I look forward to answering any questions you might have, and

I would like to note at the end of the hearing and with the agreement of the chairman we will provide a demonstration of key attributes and functionality of the handheld computer for those interested.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murray follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Let me start with Mayor Bowser.

Mr. Mayor, State governments have been invited to participate

in the LUCA program during the 2008 census dress rehearsal. This

requires that they obtain information from local jurisdictions. It

has come to the subcommittee’s attention that some local jurisdictions are reluctant to share the information for fear that it might

be shared with third parties other than the Census Bureau. What

specific actions or programs has the U.S. Conference of Mayors instituted to work with Members and State officials to ensure that

information gathered for the dress rehearsal is not shared with any

agency other than the Census Bureau?

Mr. BOWSER. Well, I know within our own community we only

assign two people to handle the census, and one works with the

county because we are trying to put together a bigger program

than just the local effort.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is getting ready to have some

training sessions to make sure that the information is not shared

beyond what is necessary for the Census Bureau.

I think that is the best I can say about that.

Mr. CLAY. So the Conference of Mayors, the U.S. Conference of

Mayors does have a plan to facilitate the local programs with the

Bureau?

Mr. BOWSER. Yes.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for that response.

Dr. Prewitt, let me begin by thanking you for your service to the

Nation as Director of the Census from 1998 until 2001. Much of the

success of the 2000 decennial census can be directly attributed to

your leadership and dedication.

I also want to thank you for acknowledging the diligence and

commitment of the Bureau’s staff. You are right in your assessment that some Members are not aware of how difficult a task we

have assigned to the Bureau. Their task is made all the more difficult when Congress does not provide sufficient resources for planning and implementation of the decennial census. Again, thank you

for making that point.

I also appreciate your providing your professional opinion on how

the subcommittee can best approach oversight of the census.

What do you believe were the most notable successes of the 2000

census? And in your response I would like for you to address the

role partnerships might have played in achieving your goals at the

time.

Mr. PREWITT. Thank you very much for your kind comments, Mr.

Chairman.

With respect to specifically the partnership program, I traveled

a great deal. I felt that the Director of the Census had a kind of

a role somewhere between a preacher and a cheerleader, to try to

explain, but also to celebrate, if you will, the census. I must have

visited in the neighborhood of 200 different events that were organized by the partnership program. They all had the same characteristic. There was just a community excitement and an understanding of this responsibility.

I won’t detail this, but, for example, I remember in San Antonio

the oldest Catholic church in the country, as a matter of fact, dediVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00096 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cated a whole mass just to the census, because they felt so strongly

about the importance of reaching out to the undocumented in that

area and used the church to make that message.

Chambers of commerce, corporations all over the country. So insofar as the census becomes a kind of a government responsibility

that is owned by the people, that happened through the partnership program.

It is very difficult to document the exact payoff in the response

rate; however, I was, at the end of the census, very pleased to recognize the GAO, itself, recognized that the partnership program

had made a difference in the mail-back response rate, which saves

money. More important than that, it engaged the American people

in this very important civic responsibility.

Mr. CLAY. So the key is actually to involve communities and involve Americans in the census and make them feel a part of the

census, and I guess explain to them, through the advertising, that

this is essential to us building this country.

Mr. PREWITT. I think, if I could continue for a second, Mr. Chairman, you appreciate, of course, in 2000 there was a partisan battle

about the census. It was intense, and it sort of crippled some of the

things we would have liked to have done. I will just give you one

example. It would be marvelous in 2010 if on April 1st the U.S.

Congress stops collectively its business and all of them sit there

and fill out their form on television to say to the American people

this is what this is all about. So those kinds of things would create

a fundamentally different, I think, mind set, if you will, about what

a census can be.

Mr. CLAY. And you also talked about how this committee needs

to use the oversight function through different stages of the census,

the lead up to the dress rehearsal, actually in that period between

2008 and 2010, and to troubleshoot, actually, and to make sure

that everything is prepared to go for that April 1st date. I mean,

you stressed it in your testimony.

Mr. PREWITT. Yes.

Mr. CLAY. I guess you can’t say it often enough to us to actually

use the oversight function.

Mr. PREWITT. Of course, on behalf of the American people, you

are the responsible agency to make sure that there is a good census. And I think don’t underestimate the extent to which hearings

operate as a discipline on the Bureau, making sure they have their

act together, they have their answers in place. Even though it

sounds sometimes rote, I can tell you back at the Bureau when we

get ready for hearings we take it very, very seriously. So there is

a real responsibility that the Congress can exercise.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for that response.

Dr. Salvo, in response to you raising the issue of non-traditional

housing patterns, particularly multi-unit dwellings, what specific

challenges do you believe the Bureau will face with respect to these

units during the 2008 dress rehearsal, and what adjustments

would you recommend they make to the current plan to address

these challenges?

Mr. SALVO. Well, ideally it would be great if the Census Bureau

tested this procedure that I have outlined called update enumerate

where, in effect, blocks in the test area are identified as having adVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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dresses that, frankly, cannot be mailed to, and instead enumerators

are sent out to conduct the enumeration in person, to knock on

doors, fix the list, and conduct the enumeration.

Again, we are dealing with a short form only census. Penetration

of these households in small, medium, and large cities—and I

should say that. What I am talking about exists in many places—

can only occur if the local people, people who are hired locally by

the Bureau, go out and pound the pavement and knock on those

doors and enumerate people contained within those housing units.

Mr. CLAY. OK. You raise a good point.

Now let me go to Mr. Murray. Will your handheld devices address the issue that he raised about five different mailboxes being

in one what was initially a single family home. I mean, he supplied

us with photos of a single family house that was converted into a

three-unit house that had five mailboxes. How would your

handheld address that?

Mr. MURRAY. Yes, it will. It has the capability to, as they are address canvassing that particular street or area or where you are

seeing the multiple mailboxes, the enumerator will be standing at

the base of the mailbox. It will have the addresses that are currently on record in the device. It also has the capability to go and

add new addresses for the additional mailboxes that have been

identified.

Mr. CLAY. I see. The subcommittee has learned that there are

concerns about the time line of training, the training time line.

What is the status of the project, Mr. Murray? Are you all on

schedule and on budget?

Mr. MURRAY. We are currently on schedule and, as I mentioned,

we have deployed the FDCA system to support the dress rehearsal,

address canvassing operations in Stockton and Fayetteville, and it

is ready for operations. We have a field force out there right now.

We have IT technicians supporting the Bureau and, again, are

ready to support those operations.

With respect to the budget, we are on plan. With respect to the

overall program, there are challenges in fiscal year 2007 that we

are addressing.

Mr. CLAY. OK. And, of course, the cost for the project is $200 million, which is a substantial expense. Is the program adaptable for

future use?

Mr. MURRAY. For the MAF/TIGER program it is $200 million.

For FDCA it is $600 million. For MAF/TIGER, there is a marriage

between MAF/TIGER and FDCA that can occur. MAF/TIGER basically does the base road network, and FDCA has the capability to

add additional roads. The advantage of MAF/TIGER is MAF/

TIGER in the long run will be able to add roads on a larger scale.

FDCA will add roads as the enumerators are literally address canvassing the streets. The handheld device that we have built has the

capability of adding roads real time while the enumerators are out

on the street on those roads using the GPS technology.

Mr. CLAY. I see. Thank you for that response.

Let me ask Mayor Bowser, I assume you were the mayor of East

Orange during the 2000 census?

Mr. BOWSER. Just after.

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Mr. CLAY. Just after. OK. So you did not experience, or did you

have——

Mr. BOWSER. I did participate briefly, because I was the director

of public works in the city at the time that the preparation was

getting ready for the 2000 census, and we did have a lot of preparation.

What I failed to mention before when you asked about the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, what they are doing, at the winter conference right here in D.C. the Census Bureau had a booth at our

conference there, and at the June conference, which will be in California in Los Angeles, there will be workshops that will be taking

place about the census in preparation for that coming up.

Mr. CLAY. So you think the partnership is essential?

Mr. BOWSER. It is necessary in a community like mine where we

are in the categories of 50,000 to 100,000 people. We are the highest percentage of people of color, so when folks show up don’t look

like most of the people in the city, they get very scared. So you

need to partnership to go and take some of the canvassers around

and do whatever you have to do to make sure the church members

are getting involved, the young people are getting involved. That

is what we are prepared to do.

Mr. CLAY. And when you don’t do that, that is when the undercounts occur.

Mr. BOWSER. Exactly.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Mr. Prewitt, as you know, there is concern about Director

Kincannon’s resignation and the impact that it might have on the

implementation of the 2010 census. You have served as Director of

the Bureau and are fully knowledgeable of the type of leadership

that is required of the head of the agency. Would you like to share

any thoughts concerning the skills set the next Director should possess? Have you thrown your hat into the ring? Please feel free to

comment on it.

Mr. PREWITT. On the latter part of your question, sir, I felt very

strongly when I was Director and after I left—and I put that in the

record many times—that the Census Bureau Director should be a

5-year term appointment, not one that is coterminous with the

Presidential change in leadership, for all the right reasons, without

going through that. I was quite saddened by the fact that my resignation was accepted at about 12:02 on January 20, 2000. As soon

as President Bush said I do it was the end of my tenure.

I would be deeply complimented if the White House were to approach me about being the Census Bureau Director now, and I say

that very seriously because I think it would be a signal that we do

not think the Census Bureau directorship is a partisan appointment, that it is beyond and above. It is like the National Science

Foundation, the head of NASA. It is a scientific job fundamentally,

not a political job. I haven’t thrown my hat in the ring because I

didn’t think it would do any good, but I think it would be a very

strong signal to the country that we see the census as outside of

the political process, starting a political process, but it, itself, is

outside the political process.

So I think the most important criteria is someone that not only

has the technical capacity and the managerial capacity, of course,

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to manage something that is complicated, and so forth, but also

knows what the census stands for in the history of this country.

Mr. CLAY. While you were Director, did you ever offer up or encourage anyone in this body to offer and propose that we come up

with a 5-year term? It is quite an intriguing concept that makes

a lot of sense, especially with what we are going through now.

Mr. PREWITT. I believe that Congresswoman Maloney at one

time, indeed, framed some legislation on exactly that issue for sort

of a seven into two cycle so you overlap the decennial, and it is too

bad that legislation hasn’t moved forward.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that.

Dr. Salvo, any comments on Mr. Prewitt’s response as far as a

new Director for the Census? Do you have any ideas about that?

Mr. SALVO. Well, I certainly agree that statistical demographic

competency should be very, very high on the list of any candidate.

Essentially, the head of the Census Bureau is given a job that requires an understanding of the science as the foundation for the decennial census and for the American Community Survey and all

the programs at the Census Bureau. I would second Mr. Prewitt’s

kind of affirmation of the importance of getting someone in who

really understands the science and how those things work.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that.

The subcommittee has learned that there are concerns about the

time line for LUCA training and the review and comment period.

In your opinion, should the time line be revised? And if so, how?

Mr. SALVO. The time line needs to be revised. The Census Bureau is in the field now doing what is called promotional LUCA

training, which amounts to getting people interested in the program, getting them to come forward and agree to participate.

When I go out with the Census Bureau—and I have gone out—

there is a lot that can be done to prepare jurisdictions from a technical standpoint. For example, there is software that the Census

Bureau has that they can begin to introduce to the jurisdictions as

an incentive to participate in LUCA. That needs to be done within

the next 2 months, because summer is coming up, the files will be

delivered in the fall. You cannot do technical training at the same

time that you deliver the files. It needs to be done several months

in advance, which means June of this year would be a good time

point.

Mr. CLAY. How about you, Mayor Bowser? How do you feel about

the time line with LUCA?

Mr. BOWSER. Well, I think the time line seems to be a little bit

too compressed. Certainly, the more preparation you have, because

this is too important to really the lifeblood of the cities and to the

country, so the more prepared you are, the more accurate the numbers are going to be, and then everybody can benefit from that.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much.

Mr. Murray, the handheld devices will not be field tested until

next month. GAO expressed concerns that leaves little time to correct any problems with the devices before the 2008 dress rehearsal.

Does Harris have a plan for addressing problems that might arise

during the field test and correcting them before the dress rehearsal? Please explain.

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Mr. MURRAY. I was actually very delighted to meet Mr. Scire

from the GAO, because I have been reading his reports for some

time from the 2004–2006 tests, so during the break I had the opportunity to actually walk through the new device, provided him a

brief demo as to how we have addressed the issues that have been

identified in his report. So right now the key is the handheld device

is built. This is the device that will work for decennial. We will test

it during dress rehearsal.

We have done some extensive testing on it so far. From a production standpoint, we have gone through what we call destructive

testing on over 1,000 units, where we have done everything from

shock and vibration testing, dropping them in water, seeing what

they will do, what they won’t do, every type of possible test. So we

believe this device is solid, it is ready. The software is complete

today for, again, dress rehearsal, address canvassing. It works. We

have demonstrated it in our formal tests. So we are very comfortable and very confident that this device will be successful going

forward.

Mr. CLAY. And, Mr. Murray, the devices have various security

features. What has Harris done to ensure the reliability of these

features?

Mr. MURRAY. The first thing with respect to liability, for dress

rehearsal we have delivered 1,388. We did a 100 percent test of all

of those units, and every one of them worked.

With respect to security, security is embedded throughout the architecture. As soon as an enumerator goes to a house, as they are

entering the data, when they complete that housing data that they

have entered, that data is then encrypted on the SD card that is

located in the device.

Once they complete that assignment and they walk away from

that house, if they are in cell range that data is automatically

transmitted over a private network, secure private network, and it

is encrypted, and then it is removed from the device, itself.

Mr. CLAY. The handheld devices allow canvassers to collect GPS

coordinates. The accuracy rate required by the Census Bureau is

3.5 meters. Do the devices meet or exceed that requirement?

Mr. MURRAY. The devices do meet that. There are some limitations when you are in the middle in the city and your GPS is obstructed. Satellites are obstructed by tall buildings, or when you

are in certain mountains there are some GPS obstructive. When

you have clear shots of GPS satellites, it works flawlessly.

Mr. CLAY. OK. What happens when there are obstructions? How

do you followup?

Mr. MURRAY. They will take a mark, and they are able to take

a mark, and the device will remember that mark. That particular

mark will not be accurate to the three meters. It will be off by a

couple of meters beyond that three meters.

Mr. CLAY. And that requires a person or enumerator to followup?

Mr. MURRAY. Correct.

Mr. CLAY. OK. All right. Let me ask a final question of Mr. Bowser. I hear we have votes coming.

Mr. Mayor, the Census Bureau will have regional and local offices to provide assistance to local officials. What are your expectaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:36 Jun 25, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35769.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions of the local offices, and how can they be a resource to your

members in implementing the 2010 census?

Mr. BOWSER. Well, what we did during the last census I think

really worked well, because regional offices’ representatives made

periodic regular visits to our community, because we are sort of

like in the center of the county, and we would bring some of the

surrounding communities in so that we all shared the same information at the same time, so the regional offices worked very well

with us.

Mr. CLAY. All right.

Let me wrap up this hearing by thanking all of you all for giving

your time today, for coming here and testifying on such an important subject. I appreciate your expertise and your testimony today.

I will adjourn the hearing.

Mr. Murray, you do have permission to do a demonstration after

the hearing.

Mr. MURRAY. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here.

The committee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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