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THE 2010 CENSUS: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE

CENSUS BUREAU’S PREPAREDNESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 25, 2010

Serial No. 111–90

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 OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

JUDY CHU, California

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

DARRYL PIGGEE, Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 25, 2010 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Jackson, Arnold, Associate Director, U.S. Census Bureau; Robert

Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, Government Accountability Office; and Judy Gordon, Associate Deputy Inspector General, Department of Commerce ........................................................................................ 4

Goldenkoff, Robert ..................................................................................... 18

Gordon, Judy ............................................................................................. 52

Jackson, Arnold ......................................................................................... 4

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

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 3

Goldenkoff, Robert, Director, Strategic Issues, Government Accountability

Office, prepared statement of ....................................................................... 20

Gordon, Judy, Associate Deputy Inspector General, Department of Commerce, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 54

Jackson, Arnold, Associate Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 7

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THE 2010 CENSUS: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE

CENSUS BUREAU’S PREPAREDNESS

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010

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 2:10 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Clay, Driehaus, Cuellar, Chu, and

McHenry.

Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Jean Gosa,

clerk; Yvette Cravins, counsel; Anthony Clark, professional staff

member; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director; and Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk

and Member liaison.

Mr. CLAY. The Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee will now come to order.

Good afternoon and welcome to today’s hearing, entitled ‘‘The

2010 Census: An Assessment of the Census Bureau’s Preparedness.’’ Today’s hearing, as the title indicates, will examine the improvements the Census Bureau has made in its operations and systems leading up to the 2010 enumeration. We will further examine

those specific IT systems and budget uncertainties which cause

GAO to categorize the Bureau’s efforts as high risk. Today’s dialog

should lead to more certainty and knowledge of the mitigation

strategies for 2010 census challenges.

We all have one goal in mind, a true, accurate reflection of our

country. I appreciate Dr. Groves’ leadership and efforts.

We have with us today distinguished colleagues who will be joining us who have been asked to participate in this hearing.

Without objection, the chairman and ranking minority member

will have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who

seeks recognition.

Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous material for

the record.

The purpose of today’s hearing is to complete the census cycle.

We began this journey many hearings ago. This subcommittee has

visited the compilation of the Master Address File, known as

LUCA, and its intricacies. We examined the external challenges of

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counting our country and the consequences of undercounts. We

studied Group Quarter Validation and Complete Count Committees. We addressed fingerprinting and the hiring of Census workers. We have further assessed the advertising campaign to reach

our hardest-to-count populations. So today’s efforts must now focus

on the Bureau itself, with an assessment of its preparedness to

complete the 2010 task.

First on our panel, we will hear from Mr. Arnold Jackson, Associate Director of the Census Bureau.

Welcome.

Next, we will hear from Mr. Robert Goldenkoff, Director of Strategic Issues at the Government Accountability Office.

Thank you for being here.

And our final panelist is Ms. Judy Gordon, Associate Deputy Inspector at the Department of Commerce.

This panel is well suited to answer all questions and provide updates on the Bureau’s preparedness. We look forward to their insight into this effort, and I thank all of the witnesses for appearing

today and look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. At this time, I will now yield to any Member who has

an opening statement.

Ms. Chu, would you have an opening? No, you’re fine.

How about Mr. Cuellar? Would you have a—no.

All right. Then we will take testimony now.

Mr. Jackson, we will start with you, and—we will hear first from

you, Mr. Jackson, and second from Mr. Goldenkoff and finally from

Ms. Gordon.

It is the policy of this committee to swear in all witnesses before

they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

STATEMENTS OF ARNOLD JACKSON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; ROBERT GOLDENKOFF, DIRECTOR,

STRATEGIC ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND JUDY GORDON, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY INSPECTOR

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

STATEMENT OF ARNOLD JACKSON

Mr. JACKSON. Thank you, Chairman Clay, Ranking Member

McHenry, members of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to

provide an operational update, including the status of the PaperBased Operations Control System of the 2010 decennial census.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, we are underway, the census is ongoing and proceeding, and we are on a path to a successful 2010

census. The efforts of the previous years are paying off, including

the support of this subcommittee and committee, and our work

with stakeholders are now paying dividends.

A complete and accurate census is a complex endeavor. However,

the finely tuned strategies we have to count every person in this

country are paying off. All of these efforts, from census operations

to promotion, are grounded in thorough research, extensive coordination and preparation, and local knowledge.

The 2010 census enumeration actually began in Noorvik, AK, on

January 25th. In this small village, which piques the interest and

imagination of the country each decade, the resulting news generated interest from over 80 million people, a great introduction for

the 2010 census.

We have also conducted an operation known as Group Quarters

Advance Visit, which facilitates the process of counting residents in

group quarters. Census workers visited more than 270,000 group

quarters locations to plan for the group quarters enumeration.

We have started an enumeration of—an enumeration activity,

known as Update/Leave, where we actually go to addresses where

the address may not represent the actual location of the housing

unit.

We are doing Update/Enumerate, which began on March 22nd

and ends May 29th. Update/Enumerate is primarily used in areas

with seasonal housing; therefore, a high number of vacants, American Indian areas, and the colonias in South Texas.

The vast majority of housing units, however, more than 120 million, received their questionnaires in the mail last week. Mailout/

Mailback for the 2010 census includes an advance letter, the questionnaire and a reminder postcard; and for the first time, we will

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send a replacement questionnaire to about 25 million households in

census tracts where we anticipate a low response rate. This will be

done on April 3rd.

The staged efforts are intended to encourage participation. We

have a program that is available on our Web site, known as Take

10 Challenge. It is a challenge that we have initiated to encourage

some friendly competition between communities to compare their

response participation rates to each other. As you know, participation is the foundation of an accurate and complete census, but that

is not all.

We also have Telephone Questionnaire Assistance and an Integrated Communications program. The goal of the Telephone Questionnaire Assistance is to quickly provide assistance whether it is

answering a question, sending a Language Assistance Guide or

sending a replacement questionnaire to call us. Further, we have

30,000 Questionnaire Assistance Centers that are now open where

respondents can get help filling out a Census form.

But of course, as you know and as we have testified and as our

director has testified recently, the cornerstone of the 2010 census

promotional effort is the Communications program, which includes

both advertising and partnerships. The campaign has proven successful, and we are experiencing high levels of interest and indications of intent to participate in the census.

As you know, by increasing the response rate, we can dramatically affect the costs and effectiveness of our nonresponse operations. In a matter of a few weeks, we will be prepared to send as

many as 700,000 temporary workers to the field to enumerate between 47 million and 55 million housing units.

While it is important to note that we are much better prepared

than we were in any previous census, we are not without concerns.

We continue to manage daily the risk of instability and the limited

functionality of our Paper-Based Operations Control System and of

our Decennial Applicant, Personnel and Payroll System.

The Census Bureau undertook the development of the PaperBased Operations Control System as a high-risk alternative in

2008. The compressed PBOCS development schedule has resulted

in abbreviated testing cycles which occur much closer to operations

than we would have preferred. That, in turn, has led to a higher

number of defects than we would have expected. However, we are

prioritizing them as we move toward operations. Workarounds,

such as staggering start times, sharing printing resources and

other such alternatives, are allowing us choices and tradeoffs to ensure successful field operations despite less than perfect IT systems.

I am managing these risks daily, and our outlook is improving.

We have recently boasted both the Paper-Based Operations Control

System and the DAPPS system infrastructure and technical support.

The Census Bureau remains cautiously optimistic, and I am personally encouraged by recent progress and by the dedication of staff

and contractors. In the last couple of weeks, not only have I overseen the installation of new hardware and witnessed a decreasing

number of defects, but we have been able to slowly increase user

capacity—all indications that, day by day, this system is becoming

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mature. PBOCS is functioning and currently supporting our field

operations.

Over the next several months, hundreds of important tasks will

be completed, and your continued support is crucial to a successful

census. Again, I thank the subcommittee for this opportunity, and

I am more than happy to answer your questions.

Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Jackson.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Mr. Goldenkoff, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry,

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be

here today to provide an update on the Census Bureau’s readiness

for the 2010 enumeration. With 1 week remaining until census day,

the Nation has entered one of the most crucial time periods in the

decade-long census life cycle.

Earlier this month, the Bureau mailed out questionnaires to

around 120 million households. In the coming weeks, the Bureau

will launch additional operations aimed at enumerating certain

hard-to-count populations as well as the estimated 50 million

households that fail to mail back their Census forms. The success

of these operations will have a major impact on the accuracy of the

census as well as its ultimate cost, now estimated at around $14.7

billion.

As requested, I will update the subcommittee on the state of the

census, paying particular attention to, first, the reliability of key IT

systems and, second, the extent to which critical enumeration activities are on track.

Overall, the Bureau’s readiness for a successful head-count is

mixed. It is deeply troubling that, at this late date, two critical IT

systems have not yet demonstrated their ability to function reliably

under full operational loads. The performance problems plaguing

these two systems represent the most significant threat to the cost

and the quality of the enumeration.

Specifically, the Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll System [DAPPS], the automated system the Bureau is using to process

applicants and handle the payroll of the Bureau’s massive temporary labor force—needed to be fully functional under a heavy

load, by mid-March. However, the system had limited capacity and

was sluggish. These shortcomings occurred despite the fact that

100,000 temporary employees were on board, far below the roughly

600,000 employees that will be working when nonresponse followup

is in full swing in a few weeks.

As of March 22nd, Bureau officials stated that they had taken

steps to improve DAPPS’ performance, including upgrading the system’s software and installing additional hardware. More will be

known about the success of these fixes in the coming days.

The Bureau also needs to resolve ongoing problems with the

workflow management system it will use to administer its field operations. Although the first release of this system was deployed for

early field activities in January and certain components of the second release were deployed in February, both releases have known

defects, including limited functionality, slow performance, and

problems generating certain progress and performance reports. The

Bureau also restricted the number of users in each local Census office due to capacity limitations.

What’s more, the component of the second release that will be

used to manage nonresponse followup, the largest Census field operation, is still being tested and is scheduled to be released in midApril. This is about 3 weeks later than planned and barely ahead

of when nonresponse followup is scheduled to begin in early May.

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As a result, little time will be left to resolve any problems identified during testing.

Other functions are faring better. Key enumeration activities are

generally on track, and some activities aimed at improving the participation of hard-to-count groups are more robust compared to

similar efforts during the 2000 census.

For example, the Bureau has launched an aggressive outreach

and promotion effort. Key differences from 2000 include increased

staffing for the Bureau’s partnership program, targeted paid advertising based on market and attitudinal research, and a contingency

fund to address unexpected events.

Moreover, to improve the participation of transient seasonal farm

workers and others at risk of being missed by the census, the Bureau launched its Be Counted program earlier this month. This effort makes forms available in around 40,000 locations across the

country, such as libraries and community centers.

Moving forward, it will be important for the Bureau to quickly

identify the problems affecting key IT systems and test solutions.

Further, given the complexity of the census and the likelihood that

other glitches might arise, it will be important for the Bureau to

stay on schedule, monitor operations and have plans and personnel

in place to quickly address operational issues.

These operational considerations aside, I want to stress that the

Census Bureau cannot secure a complete count on its own. The

public must also fulfill its civic duty to return their questionnaires

in a timely manner. According to the Bureau, each percentage

point increase in the mail response rate saves taxpayers around

$85 million and yields more accurate data.

The bottom line is that the success of the 2010 census is now,

to a large degree, in the hands of the Nation’s residents.

Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, this concludes my

remarks, and I will be happy to answer any questions that you or

other members of the subcommittee might have.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Goldenkoff.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Ms. Gordon, you’re up for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF JUDITH J. GORDON

Ms. GORDON. Thank you.

Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and members of the

subcommittee, we are pleased to be here today to share our perspectives on the Census Bureau’s readiness for this year’s decennial count. As my colleagues on the panel have noted, the census

is already in high gear, with more than 100 million residents receiving Census forms last week. However, key information technology systems continue to experience performance and

functionality shortfalls, and these systems can affect the ultimate

schedule, cost, and success of the census.

My statement today will cover three areas: first, the systems

issues and their risk to nonresponse followup [NRFU]; second, the

importance of monitoring NRFU costs; and third, some initial observations from our field work.

Critical to the success of NRFU is the Paper-Based Operations

Control System [PBOCS]. This system is essential to handling assignments to enumerators, tracking questionnaires and reporting

on the status of operations. PBOCS development has been compressed to meet the schedule. The inevitable impact of this ‘‘just in

time’’ approach is that certain errors are not being found until the

system is in actual operation, and not all capabilities are implemented.

PBOCS has suffered from slow performance and continues to experience complete system outages. An outage earlier this week

lasted an entire day. A similar outage during the large NRFU operation would be particularly serious.

The Decennial Applicant, Personnel and Payroll System

[DAPPS], has experienced similar performance limitations and

operational impacts. DAPPS is critical to recruiting, managing, and

paying the enormous temporary Census work force.

To allow for installation and testing of improvements, local Census office systems have been shut down at night and on weekends.

This prevents Census from adding more shifts to catch up on work

that has fallen behind schedule. Census engineers and operational

managers are aggressively attacking the system issues. Nevertheless, Census will have to rely on workarounds to compensate for

system limitations. Workarounds must be fully tested and clearly

explained to minimize further disruptions.

Turning to cost and cost containment, it will be especially important for Census to monitor and control NRFU costs. Address canvassing went 25 percent over its budget, largely due to overspending on wages and mileage reimbursements to temporary address

listers. NRFU is much bigger, so any cost overruns will be much

more expensive.

The ability to produce valid budget estimates is essential to cost

containment. Wide budget variances among local Census offices in

address canvassing, from less than 1 percent to over 800 percent,

indicate significant weaknesses in the Bureau’s budget estimation

capability and uncertainty in the decennial cost.

Finally, I will briefly mention two major challenges found in our

initial observations in the field during the Update/Leave operation.

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First, our staff saw firsthand how the slow performance and lack

of systems reliability are affecting efficiency in local Census offices.

We observed work getting interrupted, data having to be entered

into the system more than once, and completion of tasks being delayed.

Second, we identified a few areas in which it appears that maps

were not updated from address canvassing. If widespread, this

would be a significant problem. We are working with the Bureau

to determine both the extent and reasons for these map errors.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, although much of the Bureau’s plan

is on track, IT problems place the efficiency and accuracy of nonresponse followup at risk, and final decennial costs remain uncertain. While our testimony today discusses serious IT system challenges, we are mindful of the extraordinary efforts being made by

a very dedicated Census staff to achieve a successful outcome.

This concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer

any questions that you or any other members of the subcommittee

may have at this time.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Gordon.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. I want to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony.

Now the committee will proceed to the question-and-answer period, and we will begin with Mr. McHenry, who will be allowed to

give an opening statement as well as questions.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it’s—you

know, right in keeping with your testimony, I certainly appreciate,

Mr. Chairman, your having this hearing today because it is obvious

that we still have a lot of questions and issues to resolve even

though census day is just less than a week away.

And it is great concerns that I hear from every one of you, significantly different from the Bureau compared to the last testimony

we had from Dr. Groves. But I do appreciate you all coming. I

know it’s very busy right now, both for the IG and for the GAO as

well as for the Census Bureau.

But it does seem to me like we’re jumping the gun a little bit on

this hearing. I think we’re going to need to have another hearing

and see how the mail is coming in, because we’re just days into

mail coming back in and determining our response rate. So I do

think, with the chairman’s leadership, we should be able to do that

when Congress comes back.

Most households didn’t even receive their 2010 questionnaire

until about a week and a half ago. A lot of my constituents are

writing and calling about this as well, which is a good sign that

people are aware of the census, but I certainly appreciate the chairman’s leadership with what’s going on and making sure that we

have frequent hearings on this matter.

As Dr. Groves has stated, he would like to have an ongoing dialog with us as well.

Mr. CLAY. And, Mr. McHenry, we do intend on holding hearings

to look at the mailback response rate and at other functions of the

Bureau in their effort.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you, and I’ll get to my questioning

now; but you know, we’ve got some issues here.

Mr. Jackson, you’re slightly less positive in the tone that you

have about the Bureau’s preparedness.

Is the Bureau prepared for the 2010 census?

Mr. JACKSON. Congressman, yes, sir, we are.

I am attempting to be candid, not in any way not optimistic. I

am convinced we will have a successful census. As you know, 2

years ago, when we undertook what we call the REAP line, we

stated that choosing this path of doing paper-based operations in

lieu of continued automation would be somewhat high risk. In general, that’s what we’re experiencing now. We think we’re prepared.

Mr. MCHENRY. Time is short.

So is the Bureau still on track to meet its budget outlook and

view for nonresponse followup?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir. We’ve done a complete budget review of

nonresponse followup. We have looked at over 20 line items, and

we feel that we are more than prepared to do a successful nonresponse followup at a range of response estimates on time and

within the budget we have.

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Goldenkoff, is that the view of the Government Accountability Office?

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Mr. GOLDENKOFF. From the data that we’ve seen, certainly the

future is uncertain. The Bureau may be able to handle the workload as of today, but things are going to ramp up pretty quickly.

And as an example, you heard us mention the situation with the

operational control system. Right now, it’s at a capacity where it’s

handling seven simultaneous users per office at a time. It needs to

ramp up eventually to 16, and the Bureau is definitely not there

yet; but nationwide, right now, it needs to go from 3,000 simultaneous users up to 3,000 during nonresponse followup. From what

we’ve seen, the Bureau still has a lot of work to do.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Ms. Gordon, how many folks on the IG staff

are working on the census?

Ms. GORDON. Well, our plan is to have about 100 members of our

staff working on the census at the peak, and we’re ramping up to

that in the early operations.

Mr. MCHENRY. How many currently are?

Ms. GORDON. How many currently? I think we have about 20 or

so working on it currently.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Mr. Jackson, in terms of the Vacant/Delete

Check, there has been—would you tell us why there is a change

of $137 million, an increase in the cost estimate for this Vacant/

Delete Check?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir. Two major components.

One, the number of vacant units, as you might suspect, is higher

because of foreclosures and because of the economy than we expected when we did our initial planning, which, as you know, runs

about 2 years ahead of when we do the operation.

Also, we have added to Vacant/Delete, and we think this is a

positive step. A number of—a workload that consists of housing

units that we have identified through the LUCA process that

should be included in the census, we have added them to Vacant/

Delete so that we can get those included as soon as possible and

mail those households forms.

Mr. MCHENRY. What keeps you up at night?

Mr. JACKSON. What keeps me up at night——

Mr. MCHENRY. Professionally, not personally.

Mr. JACKSON. I do—I am managing the two critical systems, that

my colleagues have mentioned, daily. And we’re making

progress——

Mr. MCHENRY. What two systems are those?

Mr. JACKSON. The DAPPS, the payroll system. We’ve recently—

this past weekend, we upgraded that system, and it is running

much faster, so DAPPS is kind of receding from my worry list.

The paper-based control system I manage with my colleagues

from field division and my CIO, Brian McGrath, who is here today.

So we are constantly looking at what we’re doing, selecting where

we need workarounds so that by April 4th, we will know what system we’re taking to the field, and we can test it the final 2 weeks

before we go to nonresponse.

Mr. MCHENRY. So that’s what keeps you up at night?

Mr. JACKSON. That’s what keeps me up, yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Goldenkoff, I know you follow the census extensively, and in the Government Accountability Office, obviously

that is your job to have these items keep you up at night.

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Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Exactly.

Mr. MCHENRY. What are those items that keep you up at night?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. The operation control system. That is sort of

the brains of the census. They can’t conduct the field operations

without it, and right now, as we see it, there are four issues with

it.

One, people. They are being—the people who are working on the

system, they’re working extremely hard, nights and weekends, but

they’re under strain. There are just not enough of them to go

around, and the ability to train new people is very limited. And it’s

quite likely that new problems will crop up; and will they be able

to handle these new problems and fix the existing ones as demands

on the system begin to increase?

There are also hardware and software issues, and all this is running up against a very tight schedule. Nonresponse followup begins

at a very fixed date. Other operations begin at very fixed dates,

and if the system isn’t ready, if it’s not able to support these operations, you’re going to start seeing schedule slippages and cost increases.

Mr. MCHENRY. How many folks at the GAO are working on the

census?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Right now, it’s about 20.

Mr. MCHENRY. How many will be working on it in another

month or two?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. We’ll start to ramp up, too, for field operations.

For example, for nonresponse followup, we have most of our field

offices involved, and so we will be on the ground, observing nonresponse followup. Next week, for service-based enumeration, we

will have, also, most of our field offices involved in observing service-based enumeration. So we are quite prepared, and also, most

notably, it is a very experienced staff, too. Virtually all of our middle and senior managers have experience from the 2000 census.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. All right.

Well, Chairman Clay, I know there is an effort to get other folks

asking questions, but I certainly appreciate your being very candid

about this, and I hope that—you know, Mr. Jackson, most of us

are—my communities are very interested in making sure the technology is available so that we can monitor the response rate, the

mail response rate. I appreciate the widget that we’re going to be

able to put on our Web site, but we want to be able to do that sooner rather than later so we can follow this.

Thank you so much.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry—and point well taken.

Ms. Chu of California, you’re recognized.

Ms. CHU. Yes.

I know this hearing is about the overall preparedness of the census, but I want to talk about glitches that are happening right now,

Mr. Jackson.

In my area, there are residents that are complaining because

they are living in one city, but they’re receiving Census forms that

are addressed to another adjoining community. For example, residents in my area who live in Hacienda Heights are getting Census

forms that have La Puente listed as the city; and apparently, the

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director, Robert Groves, put something on his blog Tuesday morning in which he said: The actual location of your address has been

verified for accuracy, and that it was a move by the Bureau to save

money, and it streamlines how the forms are sorted and delivered

to you by the U.S. Postal Office.

But you can imagine——

Mr. JACKSON. Sure.

Ms. CHU [continuing]. The kind of feeling that people have seeing

the address listed incorrectly. And I also heard that what they’re

saying is that, you know, as far as the bar code, it’s correct. So I

want to know: Was this discrepancy really intentional?

Mr. JACKSON. Let me kind of explain how this came about.

We—in working with the Postal Service, this is the largest public

mailing that has ever occurred, 120 million addresses. The Postal

Service, in some zip codes, uses a single city when they have mass

mailings. Now, while we knew of this, we did not know exactly

what city name the Postal Service would select in each zip code,

and we probably underestimated the public reaction because, as

you say—and I would agree with you—it certainly is alarming to

some residents. There are other zip codes, like the zip code I live

in, where it is not unusual for me to get mail labeled Colesville,

even though I live in Silver Spring. However, I realize that’s not

the case for everyone, and we underestimated that.

So we have tried to emphasize that the proper counting and tabulation in a jurisdiction does not depend on the city name, and I

think that message is now beginning to get through to some public

officials because we’re beginning to see those statements.

The proper allocation of a housing unit to its jurisdiction really

occurs when we do the physical location determination; and about

a year ago, we did an exercise called Address Canvassing, and we

used GPS coordinates to make sure the physical housing unit was

in the right block in your jurisdiction. So that’s what Director

Groves means when he says that it will not affect where you’re

counted.

I would not minimize, however, the concern that the public has—

and we’ve tried through our own media arms, through our partners

and through our regional offices—to ensure residents that they will

be counted in the right place. We did not anticipate this level of

angst, and for that, I apologize. However, it does not have to do

with where people will be counted.

Ms. CHU. So this wasn’t a move to save money?

Mr. JACKSON. It is a—it’s an efficiency move on the part of the

U.S. Postal Service, not necessarily the Census Bureau trying to

save money. The Postal Service does this for reasons of efficiency

and delivery accuracy.

Ms. CHU. So how could we avert this from happening next time?

Now it’s too late, but——

Mr. JACKSON. Yes. It will not be that complicated now that we

know the potential to cause, you know, public furor. I think we will

have to have an agreement of some kind with the Postal Service

to use only a single city name for a given area, and we have a list

of names. It’s just that we gave the post office a choice, and we

probably need to work through a more mutually agreeable arrangement in 2020.

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Ms. CHU. OK. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Chu.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cuellar, is recognized for 5 minutes.

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

Mr. Jackson and the other witnesses, thank you very much for

being here with us.

Mr. Jackson, first of all, I want to thank the Census for the heated map data. We’ve been keeping up with that from the very first

day. We appreciate that.

And I’ve been looking—as you know, I represent the southern

part of Texas, a lot of the border areas, and I’ve been keeping up

with, for example, the national average as of today. On March

25th, the national average was 20 percent on the participation rate.

The State of Texas was 12. My home county, which is—and I’ve

been talking to Dr. Groves, and I thank him for being down there—

is 2 percent. Then I have Stark County, which is another border

county, at 4 percent. Zapata, another county, at 7. Hidalgo, another

one, at 6 percent. So you can see there is a little sink trend we’ve

been seeing for a while.

And as you know, in the past, I’ve been bringing up questions

about how you’re all spending that money. The advertising on the

spending, as you’ll recall—I don’t know if you were here. The last

time Dr. Groves was here, I was bringing up the point that, when

you all came up with your budget on March 26, 2009 compared to

the budget from February 4, 2010, there was a decrease in budget

from local ad buys for the hard-to-count communities, but at the

same time, there was an increase in the budget for production and

labor and so forth. So, you know, I’m one of those that I want to

see the efficiencies in how you spend the best dollars for this.

Are there any updates on the numbers for the budgets or do we

still have the same lower amounts of local ads? And I’m not doing

a comparison to 2010, because I know there was an increase, but

I’m looking at the—when you had a budget in 2009 and, of course,

the latest budget. I just had a concern that you put more money

for production and labor and less money for the hard-to-count, especially since I’ve been—and I told Dr. Groves I was going to followup, and I placed a phone call today, and I’m supposed to be

talking to him tomorrow about the hard-to-count and that we’re

going to followup on this because we’ve been looking at this with

a lot of interest.

And, again, the heated map data—I think it’s one of the best

things the Census has done, and I want to congratulate you on

that.

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir.

Congressman, let me say that on the spending, the spending for

local ethnic audiences is actually higher than it was in proportion

to the spending for what we call ‘‘diverse America.’’ Now, you mentioned a different categorization in terms of production from paid

media by—from actually buying airtime, so I’m not sure what

you——

Mr. CUELLAR. Well, the reference was if we could save a little bit

more money in production and labor, because I think one of the

things—what happened, Mr. Chairman, was that you all were payVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:01 Feb 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\62943.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ing actors money, and every time you run an ad, they get a little

fee.

Mr. JACKSON. I see.

Mr. CUELLAR. There would have been a lot of community—local

trusted leaders—church leaders and other community leaders—in

my district and other places that would have more impact, with all

due respect, than some actor from L.A.—sorry, anybody from

L.A.—or from somewhere else—Hollywood, should I say. And I

think—in my area, if you were to put one of those local trusted

leaders in one of those, I think it would have had more of an impact, and I think Chairman Clay and I have talked about this.

But I do understand there has been an increase, but I’m trying

to squeeze more dollars——

Mr. JACKSON. Right.

Mr. CUELLAR [continuing]. From the production and labor because, you know, without going into details, there was an increase

there.

Mr. JACKSON. Right. Let me tell you what we are doing.

We do have a reserve fund of about $7 million, and next week

we will be looking at a summary of the data that you just mentioned, the daily response rates, which we track daily. We look at

them daily, and we will be making decisions about where to strategically place additional ads and where possibly to spend additional

money in newspapers. So we are, I think, where you want us to be

on that.

Mr. CUELLAR. Yes, sir, and I appreciate that.

I just wondered, just because when we met, Chairman Clay, with

Dr. Groves and your staff, that was exactly the point we’re talking

about, the $7 million, and then we were going to be tracking. I

think we’re at the time now that Dr. Groves asked us to get back

to him—and this is why I placed a phone call earlier today—to followup on that because, like I said, my home county, which I’ve

been talking about, which is in the top 50 counties that are hard

to count, according to your data, has 2 percent. And unless if it

changed between the last time you updated the number—it’s at 2

percent, and we have one at 4 percent and one at 6 percent—way

below the 20 for the national average. So I just wanted to——

Mr. JACKSON. Let me mention just a couple of other things, Congressman, because I want you to appreciate, if possible, the efforts

we’re undertaking to make sure we do count everyone there.

Mr. CUELLAR. And I do. I do.

Mr. JACKSON. We’re doing a procedure called Update/Enumerate

where we actually do the enumeration ourselves rather than mail

out in parts of your area. We will be not only adding something to

the strategic ads, but we have some special partnership efforts

we’ll be undertaking around April 10th that will put people on the

ground to try to encourage respondents who have not responded by

that point in time, and of course, we still have the replacement

questionnaire that we will send out next week.

Mr. CLAY. Excuse me.

If I may, Mr. Jackson, would you share with Mr. Cuellar and the

subcommittee in writing the efforts that you’re making in hard-tocount communities——

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Mr. JACKSON. Certainly. Certainly. I’d be more than happy to

and to meet with your staff.

Mr. CLAY [continuing]. In particular in south Texas.

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, we will. We’d be more than happy to.

Mr. CUELLAR. And, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to

thank you. I know you’re all trying the best. I’m just trying to do

my best to represent my district.

Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jackson, what is the—you are bringing in senior engineers

from your major hardware and software vendors to review the

PBOCS issue. I understand that even this Tuesday there were severe performance issues.

What have your engineers found, and what are your immediate

plans for remedy?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.

We have brought in engineers, not really to consult but to do,

and there are parts of our configuration that have to do with operating systems, Oracle data bases and certain hardware configurations—network configurations—that are very powerful but are

somewhat new to us. So to augment our technical resources, we

have brought in consultants from each of those vendors to make

sure that the way we are using their technology is appropriate.

Mr. CLAY. Sure.

Real quickly, tell the subcommittee about the Bureau’s contingency plans in the event of a data security breach.

Mr. JACKSON. We have a COOP program, a Continuity of Operations Program; and for data breaches, we have an established set

of procedures that we go through. We have actually had to go

through that a couple of times where the local managers have instructions as to how to secure the facility. We have at the Department of Commerce a reporting of incidents that goes on every 24

hours, and then we have protocols for contacting local officials to

make sure that anything that requires law enforcement involvement is immediately invoked.

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

Mr. Goldenkoff, can you give me your general opinion as to

whether there is time to ensure that the Bureau’s IT systems, particularly DAPPS and PBOCS, can meet their operational requirements?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. There is time, but it’s running out.

Mr. CLAY. It’s running out?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. That’s the bottom line.

I mean, as I said before, there are these fixed dates, and there’s

still a lot of testing that needs to be done. A lot of these release—

not a lot—but the release that will be responsible for nonresponse

followup, that has some known defects in it. That hasn’t been fully

tested yet, and as these tests are completed, it’s possible that new

defects will be found.

Mr. CLAY. Have they followed your recommendation as to how to

shore this situation up?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. They have, but they—for example, we recommended better executive-level oversight, for example, better coordination among the different teams, and they’ve certainly done

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that, and we’ve given them credit for it; but in the end, there’s

these immutable deadlines and the workload that needs to be done,

and from what we’re seeing right now, it’s going to be a challenge

to complete all the testing to complete that workload in time for

these operations to start.

Mr. CLAY. Not shaping up like it should. Thank you.

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. It’s worrisome.

Mr. CLAY. And, Ms. Gordon, let me just have you finish off the

answers.

Your quarterly report states that Census spent 15 percent less

than it had planned for the 3 months ending in 2009. Is it unlikely

that the Census will continue similar cost containment in the coming months?

Ms. GORDON. Well, we would hope so, but we wouldn’t necessarily anticipate that would be the case.

What we have seen is a lot of variability of actual costs incurred

as compared to the cost estimate, so—and we have recommended

that Census really rigorously apply internal controls so that wages

claimed and travel costs claimed are actually what was incurred,

and so we—you know, we’re encouraging Census to pay a great

deal of attention to that to try to keep the costs on track.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much.

Let me thank the entire panel for their testimony today. We appreciate your testimony and your willingness to come before the

committee, and that concludes this hearing.

Hearing adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:53 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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