2000 CENSUS

Actions Taken to

Improve the Be

Counted and

Questionnaire

Assistance Center

Programs

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Subcommittee on the

Census, Committee on Government

Reform, House of Representatives

February 2000

GAO/GGD-00-47

United States General Accounting Office General Government Division

Washington, D.C. 20548

Page 1 GAO/GGD-00-47 Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center Programs

B-284468

February 25, 2000

The Honorable Dan Miller

Chairman

The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on the Census

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

The Bureau of the Census has included a number of coverage

improvement initiatives in the 2000 Census that are designed to help

increase the accuracy and completeness of the population count. These

initiatives include a program called Be Counted as well as the opening of

walk-in Questionnaire Assistance Centers. The Be Counted program is

designed to count people who believe they did not receive a census

questionnaire, or who were otherwise not included in the census. Aimed

at traditionally hard-to-enumerate population groups, the Be Counted

program is to make its forms available in various public locations, such as

community centers, churches, and businesses. Questionnaire Assistance

Centers are to help people—especially those with little or no Englishspeaking ability—complete their census questionnaires by providing

assistance in various languages on a walk-in basis. The centers are also to

distribute Be Counted forms. Both programs were tested as part of the

Bureau’s 1998 dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census.1

As agreed with your offices, this report provides information on the status

of the Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center programs, paying

particular attention to the steps the Bureau has taken to address certain

shortcomings that the Bureau encountered during the dress rehearsal. To

obtain the information, we interviewed Bureau officials from headquarters

and local offices responsible for planning and implementing the two

programs, as well as local government officials who helped the Bureau

execute the dress rehearsal; made on-site inspections of Be Counted

 

1

 The dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census was held at three sites: Sacramento, CA; 11 counties in the

Columbia, SC, area; and Menominee County in Wisconsin, including the Menominee American Indian

Reservation. Dress Rehearsal Census Day was April 18, 1998. The dress rehearsal was to mirror, to the

extent possible, the Bureau’s operations and procedures planned for 2000 under as close to census-like

conditions as possible.
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program locations and Questionnaire Assistance Centers at the

Sacramento and South Carolina dress rehearsal sites; and examined

relevant Bureau documents and data, including the Bureau’s May 1999

evaluation of the Be Counted program. We also reviewed evaluations by

the Department of Commerce Inspector General of how the dress

rehearsal Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center programs

performed. We prepared this report in Washington, D.C., between

December 1999 and January 2000 in accordance with generally accepted

government auditing standards.

The Bureau has taken several important steps to improve the Be Counted

and Questionnaire Assistance Center programs following the dress

rehearsal. The Bureau’s actions were necessary because the Bureau found

that although the Be Counted program added people to the population

totals, the program sites were not well targeted and people may have had

trouble finding Be Counted forms in places where they were supposed to

be available. The Bureau’s findings are consistent with our observations

during the dress rehearsal that processes and procedures used to select,

staff, and monitor site locations did not always achieve their intended

results.

The Bureau’s actions to improve the programs include providing its

Regional Census Centers with guidance on selecting and operating sites, as

well as developing a form for Bureau staff to track the services provided

by Questionnaire Assistance Centers on a daily basis, to help ensure that

they are providing intended services.

The 85,221 Be Counted forms distributed at the three dress rehearsal sites

added 1,477 people to the population totals, or about 0.14 percent of the

total population of the three sites. The Bureau found that, compared with

traditional mail return procedures, the Be Counted forms were more likely

to include members of such typically undercounted populations as

minority groups and the young.

If effectively implemented, the Bureau’s actions could address the

operational shortcomings it encountered during the dress rehearsal, by

making the two programs more visible and accessible to traditionally

undercounted populations. Nevertheless, some uncertainties remain. Key

among them is whether the Bureau will open as many program sites as it

originally planned and whether it has the ability to monitor and maintain

them.

Results in Brief
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Counting the 274 million people estimated to comprise the nation depends,

in large part, on the Bureau’s ability to “find” every U.S. household, and on

people’s willingness to be included in the census. However, the Bureau has

found that enumerating people with no usual place of residence, those

with limited English skills, and certain other population groups, is a

particular challenge. To help overcome these obstacles, the Bureau plans a

number of coverage improvement programs largely aimed at collecting

census data from these special populations. Two such initiatives are the Be

Counted program and the walk-in Questionnaire Assistance Centers.

The Bureau developed the Be Counted program to enumerate people who

believe they did not receive a census questionnaire, or were otherwise not

included in the census. The program also allows people who had no usual

residence on Census Day, such as transients, migrants, or seasonal farm

workers, to be included in the census. The Be Counted form is a shortform questionnaire specially modified to allow the Bureau to process and

match the forms to the census results. The Bureau plans to place Be

Counted forms in community centers, churches, businesses, and other

public locations.

The Bureau estimates it will spend about $2.6 million to print the forms,

and another $4.2 million to hire up to 8 clerical staff for each of its 520

local census offices to stock and maintain the sites. Most of the forms will

be in English, but the Bureau also plans to print forms in Spanish, Chinese,

Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean. The Bureau expects to distribute about

10 million forms during the course of the Be Counted program, which is

scheduled to run from the end of questionnaire mailout until just before

nonresponse follow-up (March 31 through April 11, 2000).

During the 1990 Census, the Bureau had a program it called “Were You

Counted” that also distributed census questionnaires to the public.

However, according to the Bureau, because the forms were not made

available until the nonresponse follow-up period, the program was

ineffective in collecting additional census data. Moreover, the public had

to actively seek the forms by calling the Bureau.

The Bureau also plans to open Questionnaire Assistance Centers that are

aimed at increasing coverage by helping people—especially those with

language barriers—complete their census questionnaires by providing

assistance in various languages on a walk-in basis. Assistance guides in 37

languages that are designed to help people complete their English

language forms, as well as large-print English guides, are to be available at

all Questionnaire Assistance Centers. Assistance guides in 12 additional

Background
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languages will be available at selected centers based on specific local

needs. The centers are also to distribute Be Counted forms and remain

open from March 8 (when questionnaires are to be first delivered) through

April 14, 2000. The Bureau budgeted about $24 million for operating the

centers in fiscal year 2000.

About 1,500 persons, or 0.14 percent of the population totals, were added

to the dress rehearsal population counts from Be Counted forms, as shown

in table 1. According to the Bureau, these people would not have been

included in the census had it not been for the Be Counted program.

Moreover, according to a Bureau evaluation, the Be Counted forms were

more likely to include members of minority groups and the young—two

traditionally undercounted populations—when compared to the traditional

mail return forms. For example, in Sacramento, the Bureau found that the

Be Counted population was about 30 percent Asian, compared to about 17

percent Asian in the mail return population. African Americans

represented about 20 percent of the Be Counted population, compared to

about 13 percent in the mail return population. In South Carolina, 46

percent of the Be Counted population was African American, compared to

33 percent in the mail return population.

Sacramento South Carolina Menominee Total

Number of Be Counted sites 218 183 16 417

Number of forms made available 24,249 59,272 1,700 85,221

Number of forms picked up 9,339 10,647 56 20,042

Number of forms returned 1,304 550 20 1,874

Number of returned forms included in the census 326 247 5 578

Number of addresses added to the censusa 140 218 2 360

Total number of housing units at dress rehearsal site 158,281 273,497 2,046 433,824

Percentage of dress rehearsal site housing units

added by Be Counted program 0.09% 0.08% 0.10% 0.08%

Number of people added 836 625 16 1,477

Dress rehearsal population count 403,313 662,140 4,738 1,070,191

Percentage of population added by Be Counted

program 0.21% 0.09% 0.34% 0.14%

a

This number includes addresses added by Be Counted forms completed as part of the Bureau's

Telephone Questionnaire Assistance (TQA) operation, where census interviewers could take

responses over the telephone from persons who did not have a questionnaire with a census

identification number. The Bureau was unable to separate out Be Counted forms submitted through

TQA.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

The Dress Rehearsal

Operations Suggested

Opportunities for

Improvements

Table 1: Results of the Be Counted Program
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Table 1 also shows that the Be Counted program “found” 360 addresses

that would have otherwise been missed in the dress rehearsal. These

addresses represent about 0.08 percent of the total number of housing unit

addresses at the three dress rehearsal sites.

Overall, a Bureau evaluation of the Be Counted program concluded that it

was generally successful in adding people to the census totals.2

 However,

the evaluation expressed concern over the “moderate” percentage of forms

picked up by the public compared to the number of forms the Bureau

distributed at the three sites, as well as the progressively smaller number

of forms returned to the Bureau for processing, and the number of forms

ultimately included in the census (the Bureau did not formally evaluate the

Questionnaire Assistance Centers). The Bureau attributed these results to

the fact that people often had trouble finding the Be Counted forms in

places where they were supposed to be available. According to the

Bureau, the Be Counted sites appeared to be in locations that were poorly

targeted and publicized.

The results of our own on-site inspections of Be Counted and

Questionnaire Assistance Center locations during the dress rehearsal and

subsequent interviews with Bureau officials, indicated that there were

shortcomings with (1) the procedures used to screen and select particular

sites, (2) the degree to which the sites were visible to passers-by, (3) the

adequacy of the Bureau’s recordkeeping and monitoring of the sites, and

(4) the Bureau’s ability to keep Questionnaire Assistance Centers properly

staffed. Since the dress rehearsal, the Bureau has taken a number of steps

that, if effectively implemented, could improve the two programs by giving

them more structure and organization.

The procedures used to select Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance

Center locations will be critical to the effectiveness of the two programs

because they will affect the extent to which sites are easily accessible to

targeted population groups. According to Bureau officials, for the 2000

Census, sites are to be selected through a joint effort between Bureau

employees, called partnership specialists, and local partners, including

representatives of state and local governments, community organizations,

and Complete Count Committees (which are to consist of representatives

of local government, religious, media, education, and other community

groups). Local partners are to use their knowledge of the community to

help identify where Be Counted forms and Questionnaire Assistance

 

2

 See Census 2000 Dress Rehearsal Evaluation Memorandum D2, Evaluation of the Be Counted

Program, U.S. Census Bureau, May 1999.

Site Selection Procedures
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Centers might be needed, while partnership specialists are to work with

local partners in selecting the sites and making them operational. The

Bureau also plans to use a database containing information from the 1990

Census and other sources to help identify potentially hard-to-enumerate

areas that could be flagged as possible Be Counted/Questionnaire

Assistance Center locations.

The importance of close cooperation between the Bureau and local

partners in selecting program sites was demonstrated during the dress

rehearsal, when the effectiveness of the sites appeared to diminish when

one group or the other had a limited role in the selection process. For

example, according to a Bureau official, in South Carolina, although the

Bureau asked the Complete Count Committees to suggest Be Counted and

Questionnaire Assistance Center locations, the Bureau was not always

satisfied with the proposed locations. The official noted that several

volunteer fire companies made the site list, even though they were only

open to the public on a limited basis. Nevertheless, the Bureau accepted

the results to accommodate local partners.

Sacramento encountered program site selection problems as well. For

example, according to the Department of Commerce Inspector General,

although the Bureau sought to consult with local partners to target Be

Counted sites in undercounted and non-English-speaking neighborhoods,

local partners provided few suggestions on locations and little advice on

where to place foreign language forms. As a result, Sacramento census

managers chose the Be Counted sites themselves, with mixed results.3

Since the dress rehearsal, the Bureau has taken several steps that could

improve program site selection procedures. For example, the Bureau has

developed guidelines containing factors to consider in selecting and

operating sites, such as using mobile Questionnaire Assistance Centers in

rural areas and making Be Counted forms available in multiunit dwellings

in urban locations. Moreover, Bureau staff are to visit Be Counted and

Questionnaire Assistance sites in advance to ensure that they are

acceptable.

Still, significant uncertainties remain. Key among these is the willingness

of local partners to help in the selection process. Taking a census is a

shared national undertaking requiring the active participation of

 3

 Bureau of the Census: Sacramento Dress Rehearsal Experience Suggests Changes to Improve Results

of the 2000 Decennial Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, ESD-10784-

8-0001, September 1998.
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individuals, organizations, and governments. However, the dress rehearsal

demonstrated that the level of cooperation may be inconsistent and

beyond the Bureau’s ability to conclusively influence. For example, as

previously noted, the Bureau expects to work with Complete Count

Committees. However, while the Bureau had invited all 39,000 local and

tribal governments across the nation to form committees, according to the

Bureau, as of early February 2000, about 12,000 committees have been

established.

In addition, questions surround the Bureau’s ability to open as many sites

as it originally planned, which could affect the likelihood that targeted

groups will be able to find them. The Bureau anticipated setting up as

many as 66,895 Be Counted locations, or about one Be Counted site for

each census tract or neighborhood. Of these, 34,725 were to be stand-alone

sites, and the remainder were to be located in each of the 32,170

Questionnaire Assistance Centers the Bureau expected to establish.

However, the Bureau appears to be falling short of these objectives.

According to Bureau data as of February 9, 2000, local partners had

committed to 13,171 Be Counted sites, (about 38 percent of the 34,725 sites

anticipated), and 18,383 Questionnaire Assistance Centers (about 57

percent of the 32,170 facilities anticipated). Although the Bureau expects

to establish more sites, little time remains to achieve its objectives.

“Street-level” visibility will be an important feature of the Be Counted and

Questionnaire Assistance Center programs, because their effectiveness is

directly related to peoples’ ability to find them. The importance of visibility

was demonstrated during the dress rehearsal, when the Be Counted

program sites and Questionnaire Assistance Centers tended to be more

visible in Sacramento and Menominee than in South Carolina. As shown

on the left-hand page of figure 1, in Sacramento, Be Counted sites and

Questionnaire Assistance Centers were located in such prominent places

as shopping centers, ethnic markets, and government buildings that were

highly visible to passers-by. For example, at the Sacramento City School

District’s Skills and Business Education Center, a large blue sign posted on

a bulletin board notified visitors that a Questionnaire Assistance Center

was located in the building.

In contrast, on the right-hand page of figure 1, the South Carolina sites

were generally less prominent. In those locations we visited, there

generally was nothing to indicate that census questionnaires or assistance

was available at the site. For example (from top to bottom), at one of the

Be Counted sites we visited, a homeless shelter in Fairfield County, census

forms were indeed available, but no signs publicized their existence. In

Program Site Visibility
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addition, the forms were on top of a filing cabinet located behind a

receptionist’s desk, and thus would have likely gone unnoticed by visitors.

Secondly, in a Questionnaire Assistance Center located at the Veterans

Service Office in the Department of Veterans Affairs in Columbia, no signs

were posted, in either the lobby of the building or in the office itself, to

indicate to passers-by that they could obtain census questionnaires and

help in completing their forms. Finally, in the bottom photo, the forms

were placed in a reception area on the lowermost shelves of a magazine

rack that contained, in addition to the forms, pamphlets on items of

interest to veterans—and thus could have been overlooked.
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In Sacramento, Be Counted and Questionnaire

Assistance Center sites tended to

be highly visible ...

a

Figure 1: Importance of Program Site Visibility
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... but in South Carolina,

program sites were less prominent,

and there were often no signs to indicate

the availability of census forms and assistance.

Source: GAO.
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To help make the Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center sites

more visible for the 2000 Census, the Bureau has, among other actions,

developed a template for a memorandum of understanding that the Bureau

and local partners are to complete and sign. The memorandum commits

both parties to, among other actions, publicizing the dates, locations, and

hours of operation of the Questionnaire Assistance Centers in the local

media.

Keeping Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center site information

up-to-date and tracking usage will be key to making sure that people will

be able to obtain forms when and where they are supposed to be available.

For 2000, this task is to be assigned to Bureau personnel called Office

Operations Supervisors. Each of the Bureau’s 520 local offices is to have

one supervisor. And, as noted earlier, local offices are also to have the

authority to hire up to eight clerks to assist the supervisor.

The importance of good recordkeeping and monitoring was demonstrated

in South Carolina where, according to the Bureau, because of South

Carolina’s difficulties in keeping program site information current, people

had trouble obtaining forms where they were supposed to be located. For

example, many of the sites on an initial Be Counted list were there because

of commitments made by organizations in the Fall of 1997. By the time the

dress rehearsal occurred the following April, some sites had decided not to

participate, while in other cases either the volunteers or the locations had

changed. Although the local partnership specialists were instructed to

update the lists of Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance sites on a

weekly basis, in some cases this timetable proved insufficient because

changes took place more frequently. As a result, such essential information

as changes to program site locations or points of contact were not always

reflected in the Bureau’s Be Counted/Questionnaire Assistance Center

database. Further, the database contained several typographical and entry

errors, and in several instances where an organization (e.g., a senior

citizens center) had multiple facilities within the dress rehearsal area, the

Bureau incorrectly assumed that since one site had committed to being a

Be Counted or Questionnaire Assistance Center location, all the facilities

had done so, and thus all were listed as active sites in the Bureau’s

database. In another instance, the addresses of several women’s shelters,

which were supposed to remain confidential, were included on a list of Be

Counted sites.

The degree to which the Bureau will be able to track activity at each Be

Counted and Questionnaire Assistance Center site will be determined, in

large part, by the extent to which the number of sites is aligned with the

Recordkeeping and

Monitoring
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logistical support available from local census offices. This fact was made

clear during the dress rehearsal when, according to the Department of

Commerce Inspector General, the number of Be Counted sites selected

(218, as noted in table 1) was far more than Bureau staff could effectively

manage. Local managers intended to monitor demand at the sites, but

found that they did not have the resources available to do so. As a result,

Sacramento was unable to identify poorly performing sites and possibly

relocate them to more appropriate areas.4

In response, the Bureau issued guidelines highlighting the responsibility

that local census offices have for updating site lists and monitoring usage,

and developed a timeline for conducting specific tasks, such as

resupplying sites with materials. The Bureau also developed a new, on-line

form that is to track the services provided by each Questionnaire

Assistance Center on a daily basis to make sure that each location is

functioning properly and is appropriately staffed.

Nevertheless, keeping up with the workload required for a rigorous

monitoring effort could prove challenging for the Bureau, especially if it

comes close to establishing as many program sites as it had originally

planned. The clerks who are to maintain the sites are to be responsible for

(1) making advance visits to each location, (2) providing information to the

Office Operations Supervisor to update and revise the Be Counted site list

when necessary, (3) placing the Be Counted containers and resupplying

them as required, and (4) picking up the containers at the end of the

operation. In addition, when a Questionnaire Assistance Center is

involved, Bureau employees are to complete the memorandum of

understanding with local partners and help secure enough volunteers to

staff each location. Although Bureau officials told us that the Be Counted

and Questionnaire Assistance Center programs are “low maintenance”

operations, the dress rehearsal suggested that the use of a large number of

sites could overwhelm local staff.

The quality of service provided by Questionnaire Assistance Centers will

depend heavily on the Bureau’s ability to adequately staff the centers. For

2000, the Bureau plans to use a mixture of paid and volunteer staff.

According to Bureau officials, each of the Bureau’s 520 local census offices

 

4

 U.S. Department of Commerce, ESD-10784-8-0001.

Staffing Questionnaire

Assistance Centers
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will be allowed to use up to 4,000 staff hours to staff Questionnaire

Assistance Centers. The remaining positions are to be filled by volunteers.5

The significance of having adequate staffing was evident during the dress

rehearsal. South Carolina relied on volunteers to staff Be Counted and

Questionnaire Assistance Center sites, while Sacramento used paid

temporary census employees who had received enumerator training from

the Bureau. According to Bureau officials, Sacramento was better able to

staff its sites, while South Carolina encountered a variety of problems. For

example, according to Bureau officials, local partners and partnership

specialists had difficulty finding volunteers to staff the assistance centers

in South Carolina, in part because the Bureau was simultaneously

recruiting for paid positions. Further, because the South Carolina

volunteers could set their work hours, in some cases their hours of work

were more limited than the hours of operation of the facility that housed

the assistance center. Turnover among the volunteers also adversely

affected the services that the Be Counted and Questionnaire Assistance

Centers provided, as well as making it difficult to publicize the

Questionnaire Assistance Centers because the Bureau could not know for

certain when volunteers would be available to assist the public.

The memorandum of understanding that the Bureau and local partners are

to sign could help alleviate some of these staffing problems. For example,

local partners are to commit to providing questionnaire assistance at

specific times in particular languages. This could help ensure more

consistent and better quality service. Also, the Bureau is to make funds

available specifically for hiring a limited number of assistance center staff,

which should make the Bureau less reliant on volunteers and better able to

hire employees with needed language and other skills.

On January 18, 2000, we discussed this report with senior Bureau officials.

They generally agreed with our findings. On February 2, 2000, we

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

Commerce by February 9, 2000. None were provided.

We are sending copies of this report to the Honorable William M. Daley,

Secretary of Commerce, and the Honorable Kenneth Prewitt, Director of

the Bureau of the Census. Copies will be made available to others on

request.

 

5

 The staffing challenges facing the Bureau for the 2000 Census are described more fully in GAO/GGD00-6.

Agency Comments and

Our Evaluation
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Please contact me on (202) 512-8676 if you have any questions. Key

contributors to this report were Robert Goldenkoff, Victoria E. Miller, and

Marcia McWreath.

J. Christopher Mihm

Associate Director, Federal Management

and Workforce Issues
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