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46–196 PDF 2009

2010 CENSUS: PROGRESS ON THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THE FIELD DATA COLLECTION AUTOMATION PROGRAM AND THE DECENNIAL RESPONSE INTEGRATION SYSTEM

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 9, 2008

Serial No. 110–109

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.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

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

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, 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 9, 2008 ................................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Murdock, Steven H., Director, U.S. Census Bureau; accompanied by Preston Jay Waite, Deputy Director, U.S. Census Bureau; Mathew Scire ́,

Director, Strategic Issues, Government Accountability Office; David

Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, Government Accountability Office; Jason F. Providakes, senior vice president

and general manager, Center for Enterprise Modernization, MITRE

Corp.; and Cheryl L. Janey, president, civil programs, Harris Corp.;

accompanied by Mike Murray, vice president of programs and lead

executive, Harris Corp. ................................................................................. 35

Janey, Cheryl L. ........................................................................................ 93

Murdock, Steven H. ................................................................................... 35

Powner, David ........................................................................................... 64

Providakes, Jason F. ................................................................................. 80

Scire ́, Mathew ............................................................................................ 47

Waite, Preston Jay .................................................................................... 41

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

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

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 21

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 11

Janey, Cheryl L., president, civil programs, Harris Corp., prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 95

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

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 32

Murdock, Steven H., Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 37

Powner, David, Director, Information Technology Management Issues,

Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ....................... 65

Providakes, Jason F., senior vice president and general manager, Center

for Enterprise Modernization, MITRE Corp., prepared statement of ...... 82

Scire ́, Mathew, Director, Strategic Issues, Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 49

Waite, Preston Jay, Deputy Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 43

Waxman, Chairman Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the

State of California, prepared statement of ................................................. 4

(1)

2010 CENSUS: PROGRESS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIELD DATA COLLECTION

AUTOMATION PROGRAM AND THE DECENNIAL RESPONSE INTEGRATION SYSTEM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

JOINT WITH COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee and committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2

p.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry A.

Waxman (chairman of the full committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Waxman, Maloney, Clay, McCollum,

Hodes, Sarbanes, Davis of Virginia, Platts, Duncan, Turner, Issa,

Sali, and Jordan.

Staff present from the Information Policy, Census, and National

Archives Subcommittee: Darryl Piggee, subcommittee staff director/

counsel; and Jean Gosa, clerk.

Staff present from the full committee: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff;

Phil Barnett, staff director and chief counsel; Karen Lightfoot, communications director and senior policy advisor; Alison Cassady,

counsel; Anna Laitin and Mark Stephenson, professional staff

members; Earley Green, chief clerk; Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk;

Caren Auchman and Ella Hoffman, press assistants; Leneal Scott,

information systems manager; William Ragland and Miriam

Edelman, staff assistants; David Rapallo, chief investigative counsel; Michelle Mitchell, legislative assistant, Office of Wm. Lacy

Clay; Larry Halloran, minority staff director; Keith Ausbrook, minority general counsel; Steve Castor and Charles Phillips, minority

counsels; John Caderes, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian and member services coordinator; Brian McNicoll, minority communications director;

and Ali Ahmad, Chris Espinoza, and Todd Greenwood, minority

professional staff members.

Chairman WAXMAN. The meeting of the joint hearing by the full

committee and the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census,

and National Archives will come to order.

Today we will examine major problems with a contract critical to

the success of the 2010 census, the field data collection automation

contract. These problems have recently led to a major redesign of

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the census very late in the process and will cost the taxpayer, by

the administration’s own estimate, up to $3 billion.

Let me be blunt: this is a colossal failure. The mismanagement

of the contract has jeopardized the success of the 2010 census and

will cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

This hearing and our future oversight activities need to have two

objectives: first, we must do all we can to ensure that the census

is as accurate as possible. The Federal Government depends on the

census for everything from the accurate apportionment of the

House of Representatives to the fair distribution of millions of dollars in Federal funds. Inaccuracies in the census deprive millions

of Americans of a voice in our Government.

At the same time, we owe it to the taxpayer to find out what

went wrong and who was responsible. The FDCA contract was

originally intended to produce approximately 500,000 hand-held

computers with a total contract cost of $600 million. Now the Commerce Department is saying that the taxpayer must pay $1.3 billion, more than twice as much, to the contractor, although it will

now only produce 151,000 hand-held computers.

In addition, the Commerce Department announced that the census will revert to a paper-based canvas. These changes will increase the cost of the census by billions of dollars.

The warning signs that this contract was in trouble were there

for the Bureau and for the Commerce Department to see. My staff

has prepared a fact sheet that summarizes the long series of

alarms that GAO and the Inspector General sounded about this

program, and I ask that this fact sheet be made a part of the

record and will be available.

Without objection, that will be the order.

In June 2005 GAO said that the Bureau was not adequately

managing major it investments. In March 2006, GAO advised that

the Census Bureau had ‘‘not yet approved a baseline set of operational requirements’’ for the contract.

In June 2006 GAO stated that ‘‘the uncertainty surrounding the

devices’ reliability constitutes a risk to the cost-effective implementation of the 2010 Census.’’

In June 2007 the MITRE Corp. told the Bureau that the census

is at significant risk of cost and schedule overruns, omission of essential requirements unless major changes are made quickly.

In July GAO warned that the project was likely to experience

cost overruns, primarily due to the increase in system requirements.

The warning signs were clear, yet the Bureau and the Department apparently did not begin a serious review of the program requirements until late 2007 to early 2008. The problems were essentially swept under the rug until the committee began to ask questions and insist on briefings from the Bureau on the extent of the

problems and possible solutions.

I am glad that we have representatives from the Census Bureau,

GAO, Harris Corp., and the MITRE Corp. with us today to address

these questions, but I am disappointed that two key figures refused

to appear today. Dr. Charles Lewis Kincannon was the Census Director when many of the key decisions were made, and we invited

him to testify, but, unfortunately, he declined. I am also disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:07 Feb 17, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\46196.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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appointed that Commerce Secretary Guitierrez declined our opportunity to testify. I have questions about the Department’s role in

overseeing the contract. The committee has requested documents

from Secretary Guitierrez, and we will continue our oversight efforts in this area.

When taxpayers’ dollars are squandered, we have an obligation

to find out what happened. We also have an obligation to conduct

oversight to identify what steps are necessary to put the 2010 census back on track. Those are our goals for today.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. I want to recognize the ranking member of

the full committee, Mr. Davis, for an opening statement.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Clay, we appreciate your calling this hearing on problems with the 2010 census. Some of us on this side have been warning about red lights

on the census dashboard for some time, but it gives us no satisfaction to know we were right about the floundering automation

project and other Government lapses at the Census Bureau.

The goal now has to be to refocus the program on essential preparatory activities and be sure the Constitutionally mandated numeration will be conducted successfully and efficiently.

I am sure some of our panel today would rather be getting a root

canal than appearing here today, but this hearing is long overdue.

After months of denials and delayed reckoning, it is time to acknowledge that budget shortfalls and management deficits at the

Commerce Department have put the census in a perilous position

at a critical time.

At the epicenter of the threatened implosion is the field data collection system [FDCA]. Hand-held computers developed under the

program were to be used for the first time to capture responses

from people who do not complete the mail-in forms, but last week

the Commerce Department conceded the devices were not ready

and trying to finish and test them in the time remaining posed too

great a risk of an inaccurate or incomplete count.

Today we hope to learn more about the events leading up to last

week’s announcement, but this much we already know: this did not

have to happen. Americans interact with hand-held devices every

day. Major international corporations use portable electronic devices all the time to track inventory and information on a global

basis across cultural boundaries and logistical barriers. What the

Bureau tried to do in creating a hand-held device to collect and

track address data and census responses from numerators in the

field wasn’t impossible, but for reasons all too predictable it proved

unattainable for the Census Bureau.

Over more than 30 years of work and acquisition policy in both

the public and private sectors, I have seen this type of failure too

many times. It doesn’t happen because the technology doesn’t exist;

it happens most often because those managing the project are in

over their heads, blithely unaware of the avoidable potholes and

pitfalls littering the path of any major IT development. It happens

because Agency officials are not trained to communicate clearly and

succinctly with contractors hired to provide the technology solution

required. And it happens when managers of our contracts between

the Agency and the contractor shuffle along day after day, week

after week, on auto pilot without any objective effort to track or

measure real progress. Meanwhile, millions of tax dollars are being

spent or mis-spent.

In this case it happened in large part because the Census Bureau

failed to tame an out-of-control requirements process that churned

internally until January of this year.

I have a chart up here. Despite warnings from us, from outside

experts, and from their own contractor, Census officials persisted

in the belief that they could stuff an endless list of tasks into the

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small box that they had already bought. For example, bidders were

told to include only one external interface on the hand-held device,

but in the end the Census Bureau wanted 12 interface systems installed, each requiring substantial additional software development, integration, and documentation.

Let’s view the second chart. This is a classic case of requirements

creep, treatable if diagnosed early, but potentially fatal if left to

fester. There is no scandal here, no nefarious plot to outsource essential Government functions. Any attempt in this case to vilify

contractors just shoots the messenger and ignores the essential

message.

This was a failure of Government management, not contract performance. The Census Bureau appears to have under-estimated the

cost of even the one aspect of the automation project that will survive, address verification. It now appears as much as $3 billion

more might be needed between now and 2010 to replace the handhelds with a paper system and fully fund those other aspects of the

census for which the Department drastically under-stated costs.

Every House Member, every Federal agency, every city, county,

and State has a vested interest in making sure the 2010 count is

as complete and accurate as possible. It is going to take a massive

amount of effort to have a successful census. In past time, we did

our part to ensure its Constitutionally mandated initiative was conducted properly and on time.

I think it is time we think about empaneling an expert monitoring board like we did a decade ago to watch over the Census Bureau and its work every day. The current level of oversight certainly doesn’t seem to be enough, and time is running short to get

it right.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis.

I want to recognize Chairman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this

joint committee hearing today.

The decennial census is the largest peace-time mobilization in

this country. We are here today to examine what happened, why

it happened, and what are the options for correcting the problem,

both on the part of the Bureau and the contractor, so that we can

have a complete and accurate census in 2010.

First let’s examine how we got here. In 2001, in response to a

congressional mandate, the Census Bureau set out to re-engineer

the 2010 decennial census. Doing so they claimed would reduce

operational risk and contain cost. Bureau officials determined that

this could be accomplished with the use of innovative technology,

specifically hand-held computing devices.

From 2000 to 2004, the Bureau attempted to design and produce

the device internally. When they realized they did not have the resources to complete the project, they decided to contract it out.

In May 2006 the Harris Corp. was awarded the $600 million, 5-

year contract for FDCA. Before the contract was awarded, the

Commerce Department Inspector General in a 2005 report expressed concern about the baseline requirements. In March 2006

GAO expressed similar concern.

Despite all of the warnings about FDCA from GAO and the Department of Commerce Inspector General, there was little congressional oversight of the 2010 decennial census between 2001 and

2006.

Since January 2007 the Information Policy, Census, and National

Archives Subcommittee held seven hearings on the 2010 census.

This subcommittee began looking into the information technology

problems with the 2010 census in February 2007. In April 2007 the

subcommittee held a hearing on the progress of the 2010 census.

At that hearing we called GAO and the Harris Corp. to testify

about the census IT contract.

At that time, GAO expressed concern about the incomplete requirements for FDCA; however, Harris testified that everything

was on time and on budget.

Between April 2007 and November 2007, subcommittee staff met

with GAO and the Census Bureau numerous times to discuss the

progression of the IT program for the 2010 decennial census, specifically how the Bureau and Harris were resolving problems identified by GAO.

On December 11, 2007, this subcommittee held a hearing titled,

A Review of the Census Bureau’s Risk Management Activities for

IT Acquisition. The Harris Corp. was present to address concerns

raised by the GAO report titled, Census Bureau Needs to Improve

its Risk Management of Decennial Census. Harris testified before

the committee that their projects were on schedule and on budget

and problems were manageable. This was in December 2007.

We have since learned that this is not the case with FDCA. The

requirements for FDCA are still not complete 18 months after the

contract was awarded, and last week the Secretary of Commerce

informed Congress that the Bureau would not be using the handVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:07 Feb 17, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\46196.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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held computing devices for non-response followup as originally

planned, but for address canvassing only.

Despite what appeared to be a smaller scope for the contract, the Bureau will pay between $900 million and $1.3 billion for a contract that awarded for $600 million.

We are here today to find out if the Harris Corp. and the Bureau’s assessments of the FDCA project were accurate in December

and how the cost could possibly double.

I look forward to hearing the witnesses’ testimony.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

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

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

I want to recognize Ranking Member Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are just all so incredibly disappointed that we are here having this hearing today. I obviously want to disagree with the chairman of our subcommittee in the activities of the subcommittee in

the 2-years prior to his chairmanship.

When I chaired the subcommittee we had numerous hearings on

this subject matter. In fact, we engaged GAO because of the lack

of belief on the subcommittee’s part that the Census Bureau was

doing what was necessary. In fact, in our hearings and in the GAO

report it expressly set out the problems that could befall us if this

was not managed appropriately.

If you look at what we are hearing now, clearly this is an issue

of just gross mismanagement. When we had our meeting with Secretary Guitierrez I asked him one question: was this task possible?

Could it have been achieved?

Unless that answer is no, then that means that someone is not

doing their job and that the taxpayers have funded a project that

has been completely mismanaged without delivering the product

that was intended, which is exactly what this subcommittee feared

when we engaged GAO and held hearings with the Census Bureau

leadership and told them of our concern of what would happen if

their plan failed.

I am not willing to concede that it is merely the Census Bureau

and that all the contractors did everything that they were supposed

to do, because I cannot believe that a project of this magnitude,

that the intellect that brought to bear wasn’t fully informed intellect, meaning that everybody at the table had responsible to deliver

it. This is, I believe, an accomplishable project that has failed as

a result of mismanagement and it has placed at risk, which is exactly what we were concerned with when we had our hearings with

GAO, the successful census.

I appreciate the chairman for holding this hearing, and as we

pursue this there is a lot to find out here. It is not just how do we

preserve the census, which of course is of utmost importance. How

do we ensure that it is done in a manner where we can all be confident, which is surely important. But when you have a committee

that is continually told by the Census Bureau everything is on

track when there are fears that are expressed by the committee

and by GAO that are not addressed, and then the Census Bureau

comes to us and tells us that the project is now failing, there is an

issue of management and oversight that needs to occur that obviously did not occur here.

Those are important issues for us to address today beyond just

the issue of how do we get the census on track.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Turner.

Without objection, all Members will be allowed to enter an opening statement in the record. I don’t want to preclude anybody who

wants to give an opening statement at this point, however, and I

do want to particularly recognize Mrs. Maloney because she has

been a long-time leader in the area of census.

Mrs. Maloney.

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to commend

you on the chronology of warnings that really documents the mismanagement of the Census Bureau and be associated in a bipartisan way with the comments of Mr. Davis, Mr. Turner, and Mr.

Clay, all of whom pointed out mismanagement personified in the

Census Bureau.

I really do not know what to say, Mr. Chairman, given the facts

before us. I have called this a statistical Katrina, but Katrina was

a natural disaster and a natural catastrophe made worse by the

administration’s incompetent response. This is a disaster, like so

many others during the past 7 years, of the administration’s own

making, I would say.

Dr. Murdock, there is no way to sugar coat it. I know you have

only been here for a few months and the administration of which

you are an appointee decided not to send the Secretary, Secretary

Guitierrez, so you are now here representing the administration.

You just got here. That’s a little unfair position to put you in.

Today I think that we will hear that there is more than enough

blame to go around among Harris, Census, Commerce, OMB, and

MIT research, but ultimately we know that it is this administration’s fault, and nobody else’s.

This census, like the 1990 census of President Bush, Senior,

willprobably again be a census that is less accurate than the one

before it.

Ultimately, there is plenty of negligence to go around, but someone has to be in charge, and this President likes to say he is the

decider, but that is not leadership. He is the Chief Executive of the

executive branch, and in the final analysis this President is responsible for this 11th hour challenge that we are facing with the census.

There is no doubt that 2 years out, given the magnitude of problems, the 2010 census is shaping up to be less accurate, no matter

who is in the Chair 2 years from now. It is regrettable, truly regrettable, that this is the case.

The only question is not who is to blame. We know that. But

rather, what, if anything, can be done to make it less worse.

That is the question, Dr. Murdock.

While the White House is looking around to find the money, and

we need to find the money to fix this mess, there is going to be a

cloud over moving forward to fix this for the next few weeks, and

I understand from some colleagues of mine at the Census Bureau,

that we are running out of money and they are now considering

layoffs at the Department.

Dr. Murdock, the first Census Director in 1790 was Secretary of

State Thomas Jefferson, and it was Jefferson who said, ‘‘The price

of freedom is eternal vigilance.’’ It was Jefferson and Madison together who crafted the novel American concept of a decennial census to empower the people and ensure all Americans are fairly represented in their Government.

Given the amount of money you are now asking for, we can see

that the cost of that fair representation and our Constitutional

mandate is priceless.

Frankly, Dr. Murdock, you are going to be back in Texas in less

than a year and Secretary Guitierrez will probably be back in

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Michigan. Chairman Waxman and Clay and I are going to be sitting here with a mess unless you work right now to fix it.

What I want to know and hear in this hearing is, after we give

you all the money you are asking for, what objective, measurable

benchmarks can you tell us today will be in place on May 1st, June

1st, July 1st so that you and this administration do not leave this

big challenge for the next administration.

I plan to ask you that, Dr. Murdock and Mr. Waite, and I also

plan to ask the same question to GAO, Harris, MIT, all of you.

We need to hear what are the objective goals that we need to put

in place and that we need to get done, and when we give you this

money, what will you show us that we can have confidence that

this census is going to go forward in the appropriate way.

If this chairman, Chairman Clay, has a hearing every month

from now until you leave and we bring you back every month, how

would we know that this plan of yours going forward will work?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mrs. Maloney.

Other Members? Yes, sir?

Mr. DUNCAN. I don’t have a full statement, but I do want to

speak.

First of all, I thank you for calling this hearing, because I think

this is certainly something we should stay on top of, but I, speaking just for myself and as a very fiscally conservative Member, I

think this is disgusting. I remember just a few years ago when

with IRS we spent something like $10 billion on a computer system

that didn’t work and just had to be scrapped, and now we come

here and we hear that this program, which was budgeted for, I

think, $11.5 billion, is not up to $14.5 billion, and we are going to

have a cost overrun here of $2.5 or $3 billion, and who knows how

much more it may add up.

We are all supposed to just worship technology, and whenever a

Government agency messes up it always says it is either underfunded or its technology is out of date. Well, this is just getting ridiculous. And nobody seems to get upset about it because it is not

money coming out of their pockets.

I thank you for holding this hearing, and I think we would have

been better off if we had just done the census the old way and not

even gone this far down this ridiculous path.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you. Any other Member wish to make

an opening statement? You certainly can put something in the

record.

[No response.]

Chairman WAXMAN. If not, I want to welcome our witnesses

today.

We have with us The Honorable Steven H. Murdock as the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Mr. Murdock is the former State

demographer for Texas. He is accompanied by Mr. Preston Jay

Waite, the Deputy Director.

Mr. Mathew Scire ́ is the Director of Strategic Issues at the GAO.

Mr. Scire ́’s responsibilities include directing work on the 2010 census. He is accompanied by Mr. David Powner, Director of Information Technology Management Issues.

Dr. Jason F. Providakes is the senior vice president and general

manager of the Center for Enterprise Modernization at MITRE

Corp. Dr. Providakes has wide experience in advising the Federal

Government on information technology programs.

And Ms. Cheryl L. Janey is the president of civil programs at the

Harris Corp., where she oversees the development of advanced

communications and information systems.

I want to welcome you all to our hearing. I hope I pronounced

all of your names correctly. This is a very challenging panel in

terms of your names, among other reasons.

It is the practice of our committee that all witnesses that testify

do so under oath, so if you would please rise and raise your right

hand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman WAXMAN. The record will reflect that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

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We have your prepared statements. They will be in the record in

full. We would like to ask, however, if you could to limit the oral

presentation to around 5 minutes. We are going to have on that little contraption on the desk. It will be green, the last minute it will

be yellow, and then when time is up it will be red. So when you

see the red, I hope you will sum up.

Mr. Murdock, I want to recognize you first.

STATEMENTS OF STEVEN H. MURDOCK, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; ACCOMPANIED BY PRESTON JAY WAITE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; MATHEW SCIRE ́ , DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; DAVID POWNER, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; JASON F. PROVIDAKES, SENIOR

VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, CENTER FOR

ENTERPRISE MODERNIZATION, MITRE CORP.; AND CHERYL

L. JANEY, PRESIDENT, CIVIL PROGRAMS, HARRIS CORP.; ACCOMPANIED BY MIKE MURRAY, VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMS AND LEAD EXECUTIVE, HARRIS CORP.

STATEMENT OF STEVEN H. MURDOCK

Mr. MURDOCK. On behalf of the U.S. Census Bureau, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you and the members of this committee

for the opportunity to discuss our plans for the 2010 decennial census.

I am pleased to be joined by Deputy Director Jay Waite today.

He will be bringing you up to date on the Decennial response integration system and the rest of the 2010 census programs.

I am going to focus my remarks on the field data collection automation program [FDCA].

The FDCA program was originally designed to supply the information technology infrastructure, support services, hardware, and

software to support a network of over 450 local offices and handheld computers that will be used around the country. It is helpful

to think of FDCA as being made up of four fundamental components: first, automated data collection, using hand-held devices to

verify addresses, what we call address canvassing; second, automated data collection from respondents who fail to return the mail

questionnaire, what we refer to as non-response followup [NRFU];

three, the operation and control system that tracks and manages

decennial census’s workflow; and, four, census operations infrastructure, which provides office automation and support for regional and local census offices.

In late 2007, the Deputy Director assessed the FDCA program

and established an integrated program team charged with finalizing the FDCA requirements. This process was nearing completion

when I arrived in early January. When Harris Corp. provided feedback at the end of January, the full scope of our problem came into

focus. This process identified issues that raised concerns about the

ability to complete development of all the operations initially

planned for the FDCA system in time for the 2010 census.

We now understand that the problem with the FDCA program

was due, in part, to a lack of effective communication between the

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Census Bureau and the prime contractor for FDCA, and to difficulties in developing the full scope of the project within deadlines. We

did not effectively convey to the contractor the complexity of census

operations and the detailed requirements that needed to be fulfilled

in order to complete the operations that FDCA covers. Once these

detailed requirements were completely delineated, we had serious

concerns about rising costs and our ability to complete a successful

2010 census if we continued developing the FDCA program as

planned.

As we grappled with this program, I established a task force

chaired by former Census Bureau Deputy Director William Baron,

and made up of some of the Census Bureau’s and the Department’s

best people, as well as representatives from MITRE, to help us develop a strategy for moving forward.

The task force outlined four options for moving forward. All of

these options call for using the hand-held computers for address

canvassing, and we are continuing to work to ensure this requirement is met.

For the other major components of FDCA, each of the options

considered a combination of responsibilities divided between the

contractor and census in terms of capabilities, expertise, staffing,

timing, and cost.

The work of the task force was reviewed by an expert panel established by the Secretary and made up of two former Census Bureau directors, a former Associate Director of the Census Bureau,

information technology experts, and a former Member of Congress.

After receiving input from the expert panel members, the Secretary

decided that we should move to a paper-based NRFU operation.

This is a decision I fully support.

The Census Bureau will implement NRFU and take responsibility for the regional census center infrastructure. Our contractor

will continue developing the address canvassing operation utilizing

the hand-held computers and develop the operations control system. This option increases our control of 2010 census systems development, and the Census Bureau knows how to develop and implement a paper-based NRFU, and our decisions to do so again give

us flexibility and minimizes the risks that we identified in FDCA

program.

At the same time, the plan allows us to leverage global positioning system technologies by using hand-held computers in the address canvassing operation. This will improve the accuracy of our

address list, which is fundamental to an accurate census.

Since becoming Director in January, addressing the problems associated with the FDCA program has been my highest priority.

With the replan outlined today, I am confident we can put the 2010

census back on track.

Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to answering any

questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murdock follows:]

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Mr. CLAY [presiding]. Thank you so much, Mr. Director.

We will now recognize Mr. Waite for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF PRESTON JAY WAITE

Mr. WAITE. Mr. Chairman and committee members, thank you

for the opportunity to discuss our plans for the 2010 census. I

would also like to thank the committee for their continued support

in the Census Bureau programs.

Since Director Murdock has outlined our plans to move forward

with activities related to the field data collection automation system, I will talk for a few moments about vital aspects of the 2010

census that are underway.

We have incorporated significant improvements over past census

in our automation infrastructure. This includes the 2010 Decennial

response integration system [DRIS]. The purpose of the DRIS contract, which was awarded in 2005 to the Lockheed Martin Corp.,

is to ensure accurate and protected collection and storage of census

responses. I am pleased to report that this contract is on schedule

and actually under budget.

Our plans for the 2010 census also include important structural

improvements and enhancements to the Nation’s road map. Our

MAF/TIGER enhancement program is a multi-year effort to realign

our TIGER data base, which is basically an electronic map of street

center lines, with the GPS capabilities and modernized processing

systems.

We have contracted that with the Harris Corp. That contract is

99.9 percent complete. All of the streets have been realigned. We

just have two or three counties that we are trying to verify at the

end. We do not expect an issue. Certainly by the end of this year

this contract will be complete and all of our maps will be aligned

consistent with GPS technology.

This activity is vital because the census must count every person

living in America once and only once and in the right place. The

MAF tells us where the housing units are located and furnishes a

lists of addresses to contact, as well as providing a reasonable

means of organizing our workload into non-response followup and

tabulation operations. The accuracy and success of the census ultimately depends on the accuracy and completeness of the master

address file.

The success of the 2000 census also depends upon the American

Community Survey, the largest household survey in the United

States. The ACS replaces the traditional decennial census long

form. In 2005 we began full implementation of the survey. In 2006

we incorporated group quarters, fulfilling our commitment to replace the long form in 2010. This year we will reduce the first detailed information for areas of population with 20,000 or greater.

A sure sign that census date is approaching is the expansion of

our field activities. All 12 of our regional census centers are now

open for business. We have hired the first 48 partnership staff and

will hire an additional 72 in May. We have provided 11,000 communities with detailed maps and address lists for them to help us

in what we call our LUCA program, local updated census addresses. By working with local governments, we learn of new housing

construction, as well as demolitions and conversion.

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In February 2009 we will conduct the address canvassing operation nationwide for nearly 134 million housing units across the

country. In addition, we will begin to validate a list of approximately 86,000 group quarters. Also in 2009 we expect to employ

680 more people for the partnership program, most of whom will

be specialists working in the field.

With similar staffing levels for census 2000 we established approximately 140,000 partnerships, and our goals for this program

are no less ambitious this time around. We believe these efforts

were the turning point in our reducing—in fact, stopping—the

steady decline of the response rates that we had observed over the

decades.

We rely on participation and cooperation of literally thousands of

communities throughout the United States. Reaching residents in

those communities, especially the hard to count, is one of the major

goals of the census and the fulfillment of our Constitutional obligation.

Our partners, advisory committees, national organizations, faithbased community, elected officials such as yourself, local community and neighborhood leaders, and even the go-to person at the

corner shop all are integral to this effort. The Census Bureau is

planning an integrated communication and promotional and marketing program to incorporate the partnerships and the advertising

and the outreach.

This is just a brief overview of several important aspects of the

2010 census.

I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you on the 2010 census, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Waite follows:]

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

Mr. Scire ́, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MATHEW SCIRE ́

Mr. SCIRE ́. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee and subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the 2010 decennial census.

With me today is David Powner, Director with GAO’s information technology team, who has been reviewing the Census Bureau’s

major information technology investments.

As you know, we recently designated the decennial census as a

high-risk area. We did so because of longstanding weaknesses in

technology management, operational planning, and cost estimation,

and because of uncertainty over dress rehearsal plans and the ultimate cost of the Decennial.

Last week the Department and the Bureau announced major

changes to how it plans to conduct the 2010 census. This redesign

will have significant implications for the Decennial operations and

costs. The redesign also highlights, again, the critical need for aggressive management of technology investments.

First, the redesign will require that the Bureau quickly develop

and test a paper-based non-response followup operation. This will

require different operations, printing, and training programs. Also,

because this change comes late in the decade, the Bureau will need

to provide assurance that this huge operation and its linkages with

other operations and systems will be tested in the absence of a full

dress rehearsal.

Second, the redesign calls for using hand-held computers for the

address canvassing operation, except for in large assignment areas.

This will require additional planning for operations, training, and

equipment in those areas.

Also, there remains some uncertainty as to how the Bureau will

work around potential inabilities to update intelligence address

lists once address canvassing has been completed. In this event,

the Bureau may elect to deliver census forms by hand rather than

via mail. It is critical that the Bureau ensure that the technology

for conducting address canvassing is a success, and that it tests the

design for large assignment areas and the linkages among address

canvassing and other operations.

Third, the redesign will result in additional cost. It is important

to note that, having chosen to go forward with its original design,

the Bureau estimated that the cost of the Decennial would be up

to $2.3 billion more than it previously estimated. In comparison,

the cost of the redesigned Decennial is expected to be up to $3 billion more than the previous census estimate. Regardless, it is not

clear that these cost estimates fully recognize changes in expected

productivity of field workers, and the ultimate cost of the Decennial

is uncertain.

We recommended that the Bureau use tools such as comprehensive integrated project plan, sensitivity analysis, and other tools

that would help the Bureau better measure and manage the costs

associated with individual operations. To provide the Congress with

credible, accurate life cycle cost estimates, it will be important for

the Bureau to demonstrate that its cost estimates reflect the most

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current understanding of important underlying assumptions, including productivity.

Finally, the redesign makes more urgent the need for the Bureau

to address significant and longstanding weaknesses in managing

information technology. Going forward, it will be important for the

Bureau to aggressively manage its key information technology investments.

I will turn it over to Mr. Powner to expand on this, but before

I do I want to thank you again for the opportunity to speak today

and, as in the past, we look forward to supporting the committee’s

efforts.

I would be glad to take any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scire ́ follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Scire ́. Mr. Powner, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DAVID POWNER

Mr. POWNER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Davis, I just have

two points to make this morning concerning moving forward and

managing the technology acquisitions associated with the redesign.

First, a clear integrated schedule with critical milestones and key

deliverables and tests needs to be clearly articulated so that oversight can be performed by the Department and by the Congress.

Test planning and execution will be critical to this integrated

schedule.

Second, a major concern we have is whether the Bureau has the

capability to improve its program management and executive level

governance of the technology. History tells us that sound management principles, both at the program level and at the Executive

level, is not something that can just be switched on overnight. Because of this, I would like to stress the importance of having the

Commerce Department executives play major governance roles as

we approach this Decennial.

Thank you. I will look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Powner follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much for that testimony. We certainly

look forward to those recommendations, and we will see if the Bureau will implement.

Mr. Providakes, you may proceed for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF JASON F. PROVIDAKES

Mr. PROVIDAKES. Good afternoon, Chairman Clay, Ranking Member Davis, Ranking Member Turner, and distinguished members of

the committee. It is an honor for the MITRE Corp. to appear before

you today to update you on the progress of development of the field

data collection automation program [FDCA].

Accompanying me today is my colleague, Dr. Glen Hines, executive director of Civilian Agencies of the MITRE Center for Enterprise Modernization, as well.

Now, the MITRE Corp. is a not-for-profit organization that is

chartered to work in the public interest. MITRE manages the three

federally funded research development centers, one for the Department of Defense, one for the Federal Aviation Administration, and

one for the Internal Revenue Service. A federally funded research

and development center is a unique organization that assists the

U.S. Government with scientific research and analysis, development and acquisition, and/or systems engineering and integration.

FFRDCs are established and designed for the purpose of engaging

with Government over the long term in addressing long-term complex problems like FDCA.

Federal acquisition regulations, FARDCs, operate in the public

interest with objectivity, independence, and freedom from conflict

of interest, with full disclosure of their affairs to their respective

Government sponsors.

It is, in fact, our privilege to serve with talented engineers and

other professionals who support the Census Bureau in its efforts to

prepare and conduct a 2010 decennial census. Because the decennial census is such an enormous undertaking, the Census Bureau

seeks to employ technology as a means toward achieving efficiencies and increased accuracy. It is important, however, to recognize that technology, alone, is not the panacea. Technology insertion must be accompanied by changes in roles of people and processes they implement. Planning, acquisition, coordinating the

changes to this combination of people, processes, and technology is

very complex and filled with risk.

Recognizing this reality, the Census Bureau sought in 2004 to

obtain MITRE’s assistance. Beginning in March 2004 MITRE assisted the Census Bureau with feasibility assessments, hand-held

computers, recommendations for the FDCA acquisition strategy,

analysis of risks, and mitigations to the FDCA program.

Next, from February 2005 until August 2007 MITRE was not involved in the management or the technical aspects of the FDCA

program. MITRE did create an independent Government cost estate during this period.

From March 2007 until June 2007 MITRE was asked to perform

risk assessments of the overall FDCA program, the hand-held computers, and security of these hand-held computers.

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And then, since August 2007, MITRE has been asked to provide

continuing acquisition and system engineering support to the

FDCA program.

Also, the committee requested information on MITRE’s involvement with the Decennial response integration system [DRIS].

MITRE has had little involvement with this program and has performed no assessments of DRIS. We, therefore, have no relevant

documents or comments that we can submit.

We remain committed to helping the Census Bureau overcome

the current challenges of FDCA program to enable a successful

2010 decennial census.

Thank you for inviting us to your hearing. I would be happy to

answer all your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Providakes follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much.

Ms. Janey, you can finish it out.

STATEMENT OF CHERYL L. JANEY

Ms. JANEY. Mr. Chairman, members of this committee and subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss Harris’ role in

supporting the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau

in the modernization of the 2010 decennial census. Accompanying

me today is Mike Murray, vice president of programs, and the lead

executive for Harris on the FDCA program.

Harris’ role in the automation process is to provide the Bureau

with the technology and infrastructure it needs to make this shift.

Harris Corp. designed and refined mobile hand-held computing devices to automate work in the field.

As you know, the Census Bureau recently made the decision to

use the hand-held devices for address canvasing, but to revert to

pen and paper for the non-response followup. We were not involved

in many aspects of that decisionmaking process; however, I can say

that there is more to the wholesale cultural transformation that

the Bureau is undergoing than technology alone. We believe three

primary factors contributed to the decision to revert to paper, based

on our conversations with census and Commerce officials.

First, the Bureau lacked sufficient and well-defined specifications

for systems and process requirements at the time it originally

issued its request for proposal [RFP].

The second factor is a direct outgrowth of the first: as census officials attempted to determine their needs, the project evolved. They

were compelled to repeatedly adjust and add new requirements. It

was just this past January, 2 years after the RFP was first issued,

that we received more than 400 new and altered contract modifications. At this late stage of the process, even minor or cosmetic new

requirements require reevaluating the system design in order to assure that each new component is fully integrated. We have been

urging the Bureau for over a year to finalize requirements, and

have been working with them to that end.

While Harris prides itself on being an expert in information technology and systems integration, we have no authority to adjudicate

the competing goals and requirements of internal census divisions

or stakeholders. That is inherently Governmental responsibility.

We must rely on our customer to tell us what requirements they

need; then we design a system accordingly.

During recent congressional hearings it was asked why Harris’

contract has doubled in cost while the scope appears to have been

cut in half. The answer is straightforward: the costs have increased

as the scope of the project has increased. Let me give you a few

examples of some of the major cost drivers.

Due to more conservative assumptions by the Bureau, additional

staff, hours of operation, and equipment have been added to handle

expected increases in call volume, and, as a result, the help desk

cost has grown significantly.

Of the more than 400-plus new requirements received in January

2008, only approximately 15 percent can be eliminated as a result

of paper-based non-response followup.

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There has been more than a 50 percent increase in the equipment requested in local census offices.

An automated followup solution has already been developed, with sum cost of about $25 million and now must be redeveloped to support a paper-based process. And the number of hand-helds allocated for address canvassing has increased from 63,000 to over

140,000.

In summary, we are doing nearly twice the work, not half the

work.

Let’s remember strides have been made in the census modernization effort. The census data base has been successfully digitized

under another Harris contract with the Census Bureau, MAF/

TIGER, ahead of schedule and under budget. The Census Bureau

now has GPS-anchored geomapping resources that provide satellite

precision. An operations network has also been put in place, with

unprecedented security measures to protect the private data of

American citizens. Hand-held devices are being readied to replace

van loads of paper for address canvassing.

With these strides the Census Bureau has formed the foundation

for continued automation.

Harris also understands the importance of being good stewards

of Government dollars. I can assure you that we always have and

always will continue to operate with the highest regard for this responsibility. Every month during the program Harris provides complete transparency to the Bureau of our cost, schedule, and technical performance. Harris is committed to helping the Census Bureau make the 2010 census a success, and it is apparent that all

parties, and at the highest levels of leadership, share that commitment.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee and subcommittee,

I appreciate the opportunity to testify and invite your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Janey follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN [presiding]. Thank you all for your testimony.

Mr. Powner, GAO repeatedly warned the Census Bureau that it

needed to plan better for this program. In their 2004 report, you

concluded that the Census Bureau needed to improve the rigor of

its planning process by developing an operational plan that consolidates budget, methodological, and other relevant information about

the census into a single comprehensive project plan that would be

updated as needed; is that correct?

Mr. POWNER. That’s correct, sir.

Chairman WAXMAN. But the Census Bureau failed to do this.

They went forward with the contract that had inadequate specifications, relied far too heavily on a private sector contractor, and provide wholly inadequate contract oversight. As a result, the American taxpayers now face billions of dollars of increased cost.

Regrettably, this has been the rule rather than the exception

under the Bush administration. The same thing happened with reconstruction efforts in Iraq, where we squandered billions of dollars.

The response to Hurricane Katrina suffered from a similar lack

of advance planning. In 2006, GAO found that neither FEMA nor

the Army Corps of Engineers had adequate contingency contracts

in place. According to GAO, the failure to explicitly consider the

need for and management of the contractor community played a

major role in the mismanagement of the relief effort.

In 2005 the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland

Security reported that homeland security procurements suffered

from the same problem, again costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The IG warned that by approving programs without adequately defined technical requirements, DHS risked likely adverse costs in

schedule consequences.

Well, it just seems to me that what we are seeing is the same

thing happening over and over again.

Mr. Waite, how do you justify the actions of the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau? You were repeatedly told you

needed to make fundamental reforms, but you never did.

Mr. WAITE. I think that we were making fundamental reforms,

but they were coming much too slow, Mr. Chairman. We had more

to do probably than we had the time to do. We were still testing

some of our procedures to try and see what our requirements

should be. In retrospect, we were very slow in catching up to this

problem. I only really fully grasped the significance of the problem

in about November 2007. We were trying to do what GAO had said,

but we found that to be a very difficult task in the time limit that

we had, and I would say we were too slow in getting that done.

Chairman WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Powner, GAO raised many of the

red flags that were ignored. The problem got so bad that last

month you put the 2010 census on the high-risk list. Do you think

the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau have acted

as responsible stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars?

Mr. POWNER. Mr. Chairman, I think it is unacceptable what happened here. I mean, as you clearly pointed out, in 2004, at the request of this committee, we started looking at institutional processes at the Census Bureau to manage $3 billion worth of IT conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:07 Feb 17, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\46196.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tracts. At that time we said they did not have those processes and

management capabilities in place.

In March 2006 we testified in front of Chairman Turner at the

time. If you go back to that transcript, we made comments along

the lines of relying on the contractor for technical solutions is fine,

but relying on contractors for requirements is not. Those were the

exact words.

Time ticked along. We followed up on our recommendations. I

point to the MITRE study, because MITRE then in June 2007

pointed out the same things. They said requirements were unstable

and they needed to stabilize the requirements immediately. Those

requirements did not get stabilized until the December/January

timeframe. That is not immediately. So it is unacceptable the lack

of action and also the lack of transparency.

Chairman Clay held a hearing on December 11th. A lot of these

MITRE findings were known at the time and they were not disclosed at that hearing.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I understand now the Bureau has asked

for some reprogramming of money from this fiscal year. What happens if they don’t get that? What is the solution? Let’s assume you

don’t get that at this point. How are we ready for the 2010 census

at that point?

Mr. MURDOCK. We are going to certainly face some significant

challenges if our funding does not continue or we do not get the

funding that we need.

We are working, as you know, with the Department and, with

their effort, to work with Congress——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I am just asking what happens if you

don’t get it. I know you are trying to get it, but if you don’t get

it what happens?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, we are looking at the contingencies right

now, developing plans that will indicate what our options are.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. They are not very good, are they?

Mr. MURDOCK. They are not. Right.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What would it include? If you didn’t get

this, it puts you further and further behind in doing the correct

count. Could it lead to an under-count in major cities?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, there is a variety of things that could happen, but certainly time here is our biggest enemy. We need to be

about moving forward with our new plan.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It seems to me that we can sit here all

day and bash people who messed this up, and it was a big screwup, and we will get into a little bit of analysis. It is not just Commerce Department. This is throughout Government, whether it be

contracting officials who aren’t trained, they get in over their heads

sometimes. They don’t give appropriate supervision. We don’t give

them good training. This is what you get.

If it were just the Commerce Department it would be one thing,

but this is, I think, endemic across Government. That has been my

experience.

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But, having said that, we want the census to go on. I know Mr.

Clay wants a good count in St. Louis. I want a good count in Fairfax and in Virginia. I am just worried about how we work together

as Republicans and Democrats with the Department to make sure

that everything is in line for a good count in 3 years. If we don’t

have that, you can’t sample without legislative changes, and that

is going to take 60 votes in the Senate. It is unlikely it will occur.

So I am trying to think. You know, just walk me through some of

the contingencies that you are looking at.

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, we are just in the beginning phases of planning those and working those out with the Department, and when

we have worked those out and we have the alternatives to look at,

I will be glad to bring those back and talk to you about them.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. But if you don’t get this money, it

becomes more problematic, doesn’t it?

Mr. MURDOCK. It becomes more problematic. And the longer it

takes for us to get things up and running, the longer the delays

are, the more difficult it is for us, because time is our biggest

enemy.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Let me just ask our GAO rep, and

then anybody else can respond: if this is about the lack of defining

requirements early on and making sure they were concise and universally accepted, why didn’t the Bureau recognize this and take

action prior to the contract award? Were they over their heads?

Mr. POWNER. Ranking Member Davis, we had that discussion.

We testified in front of Chairman Turner’s committee at the time

in March 2006—I believe that was a month prior to contract

award—and our take on this is you wanted to find as much as

early as possible, and I had discussions with Mr. Waite and others

about the need to do this, if not prior to contract award, soon thereafter. Again, I think soon thereafter, after April 2006, is not December 2007 or January 2008.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Anybody else want to respond to that?

I mean, did we have the right people on this, or was this a question

of just not having the capability in-house to get this done?

Mr. WAITE. I think that we had the right people on this. I think

that we clearly were asking for ourselves and asking the Census

Bureau to do a fundamental cultural change, and I think that cultural change was probably too great. We issued a contract for a solution, and we really were not—our field staff, which uses this

mostly, really were not fully prepared to go for a contract for a solution. Much of these changes and requirements come. I’d like you

to do a contract for solution. You bring me the solution. I said, no,

I don’t want it that way. I want it changed. That costs money and

time.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So basically the regional offices, there

was a resistance to some of the changes, that kind of thing?

Mr. WAITE. I don’t think there was a resistance. When they saw

the contract for solution product, there were things they believed

that they needed that clearly were not communicated well enough

to the Harris Corp. that we couldn’t deal with the particular products that came from the solution.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Had they been brought in earlier, you

might have had a different result?

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Mr. WAITE. Yes, that’s true.

Mr. POWNER. Mr. Chairman, if I could add to that.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Yes, please.

Mr. POWNER. Whether it is a solutions contract or not, defining

your requirements up front, telling the contractor what you need

is project management 101. So, in terms of not doing that, from a

project management point of view and from an Executive level governance point of view, clearly those folks are at fault and were not

doing the right things.

This isn’t something new. This is something we do on every IT

acquisition across the Government. We define what we want in as

much detail as possible so that we don’t have this.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Right. We see this time and time again.

I just add the one contract that I know that Congress has been involved with is the Capitol Visitors Center. That is not an IT contract, but that was one where we kept changing the requirements,

and now it has escalated three times what it was going to be. It

is way behind schedule. I mean, this is what happens.

At the end of the day, this is up to managers to try to work

through this, and this was a failure of that. The contractor is sitting out there. If you give them the appropriate guidance and you

put the appropriate reigns, this stuff generally works out. Sometimes, occasionally you find a contractor that is not competent to

do the business, but that wasn’t the case here, was it, Mr. Powner?

Mr. POWNER. No, that’s clearly not the case. But also, too, this

is clearly a Government issue. The Census Bureau is at fault. But

also, to balance this a little bit, I think, with all the red lights that

were going on and the sirens along the way, including all the hearings that the various subcommittees associated with this full committee held, you know, the Harris Corp. does have a responsibility

to converse with the Census Bureau in terms of helping to stabilize

and define those requirements more completely.

Now, to the extent that went on, we are not privy to all of those

discussions, but I don’t think they are entirely off the hook here.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. They get paid, though, anyway. It is like

it is churning if they don’t ask questions. But I hear you.

Mr. POWNER. Thank you.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. The gentleman from Virginia’s time has expired.

Let me start with Mr. Waite and Mr. Murdock. At what point did

the Bureau realize that the requirements for the hand-helds were

not sufficient? At what time?

Mr. WAITE. We began to understand the requirements needed to

be further defined for the 2010 census, itself, in around August and

September 2007. I had specific meetings with Harris, with MITRE,

and with parts of the Census Bureau staff in November 2007

where it was clear for me at that time that we were not going to

be able to get all of the requirements done, and that a big reason

that they were not done was that there were still some outstanding

requirements that needed to get fixed. That’s what we implemented almost immediately. We should have done it sooner, for

sure, but by the middle of January we had the requirements finalized, and then we really could see the full depth of how much was

missing.

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Mr. CLAY. OK. But in April 2006 the contract was awarded as a cost-plus contract, $600 million. Since 2004, GAO and the Inspector General issued no less than nine reports with their concerns,

and the concerns fell into four general categories: the Census Bureau needed to define specific, measurable performance requirements for the hand-held mobile computing device; the Bureau

needed to develop and integrate a plan to control the cost and management operation; the Bureau needed to maintain diligent oversight of its contractors; and the Census Bureau needed to strengthen their systems testing and risk management activities.

Now, when did you take their recommendations and actually follow through on them?

Mr. WAITE. Well, let me look at these individually.

First of all, the performance requirements, we were still, at the

time we let the contract, we were still testing hand-held devices of

our own making out in dress rehearsal and trying to define some

details of the contracts.

We got all of the requirements taken care of for the address canvassing part in the late summer of 2007. We finished all of the requirements for the 2010 portion of the census in January 2008. Developing the integrated, comprehensive plan, people were working

on that. It was a very difficult task, and I don’t honestly think we

fully ever got that done.

Maintaining the maintenance and looking at what was going on,

we had 50 people at a program management office of 50 individuals

whose job it was to monitor the progress of the Harris contract and

to report monthly on the progress, what was happening.

What I was getting, sir, is very, very positive reports that everything was in control until about October 2007.

Mr. MURDOCK. And I think, Mr. Chairman, that we recognize

that we have not done everything right in the past, and clearly we

need to go forward with new plans, with a new management approach of outline one that we can discuss in detail if you wish.

Mr. CLAY. Very good. I look forward to that outline and that approach, and hopefully in the near future.

Ms. Janey, let’s start with the cost of FDCA. It has been the talk

of Capitol Hill and the country. As you know, I expressed my concern about the fact that the contract price has doubled, from $600

million to $1.3 billion. It is unacceptable at any time, but it is

worse at a time when the economy is in the tank and many Americans are struggling to pay for gas, food, and shelter.

So help us understand what happened. Why is the cost double,

and what do the American taxpayers get for the extra $700 million? As you know, $700 million is not pennies.

In the original contract, could Harris have performed all of the

requested functions on the hand-helds? And at what cost?

Ms. JANEY. As I said in my oral testimony, Mr. Chairman, there

were many contributing factors that have resulted in the cost going

higher, driven primarily by changes in assumptions on the part of

the Census Bureau. The numbers of hand-helds for address canvassing have increased from 63,000 to 140,000. The assumptions

that were made on help desk have increased from about 150,000

or 160,000 anticipated help desk calls to over 760,000 anticipated

help desk calls.

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Mr. CLAY. Let me stop you there. Let’s talk about the number

of hand-helds have gone from 63,000 to 141,000. Weren’t the original numbers for hand-helds 500,000?

Ms. JANEY. Yes. Let me be clear. The number of hand-helds allocated to address canvassing have increased by 63,000 to 140,000.

Mr. CLAY. Wait a minute. Hold it. I am just a layman, really. I

am not an attorney or anything else. What were the original

500,000 hand-helds supposed to perform?

Ms. JANEY. Some were allocated to address canvassing, others

were allocated to non-response followup.

The basic point, Mr. Chairman, is that the number of enumerators increased, and increased fairly substantially based on assumptions provided by the Bureau.

Mr. CLAY. I am not going to let you just keep going on. I need

some answers. Try to answer this one for me. Given the problem

with FDCA, what assurances can you give this committee that the

technology needed to compile and integrate and maintain the data

bases as complex as MAF/TIGER will work on the hand-helds? Has

MAF/TIGER been tested with the final version of the hand-helds?

Ms. JANEY. Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned in my testimony, with

me today is Mike Murray, who is the Vice President of Programs

and Lead Executive on FDCA specifically, and I would invite him

to answer this question.

Mr. CLAY. You can’t answer the MAF/TIGER?

Ms. JANEY. I can answer MAF/TIGER.

Mr. CLAY. Go ahead.

Ms. JANEY. Yes, MAF/TIGER does——

Mr. CLAY. We will hear from Mr. Murray later. You can answer

MAF/TIGER now.

Ms. JANEY. The question on MAF/TIGER is does MAF/TIGER

work on the hand-helds?

Mr. CLAY. Has it been tested?

Ms. JANEY. Yes, it has.

Mr. CLAY. The final version of the hand-held?

Ms. JANEY. It has been tested. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLAY. And it works?

Ms. JANEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLAY. It works, so there won’t be any cost overruns there?

Ms. JANEY. The hand-held works. The cost——

Mr. CLAY. Will there be cost overruns?

Ms. JANEY. Excuse me, sir. The costs were driven by the requirements. Assuming the requirements do not change, no.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Turner is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The chairman and I were discussing this issue on the House

floor, and both of our incredible frustration that we should be in

this position now. When the chairman was talking about the issue

of oversight and how Congress looks at this matter, I had staff take

a look and pull what our committee had done on this. I chaired this

subcommittee from January 2005 to December 2006 and found that

we had four congressional hearings, three congressional briefings

on this matter, receiving the GAO report that is referenced in the

current GAO report dated January 12, 2006, and the one dated

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March 1, 2006. We held our last hearing on the census September

6, 2006.

I looked specifically at a hearing that was dated March 1, 2006,

and it states as its summary that the Bureau continues its preparation for a short form on these censuses, undertaking two major

contracts, the field data collection automation program and the Decennial response integration system. These two technology contracts have a combined value of over $1 billion. This is our hearing

in March 1, 2006.

I have my opening statement from that, based upon the GAO report, and my opening statement says, ‘‘It is our understanding that

the hand-helds failed to perform adequately and activity was concluded without finishing the address file that is needed in the next

phase. These issues must be resolved before the 2008 dress rehearsal. I am eager to hear what the Bureau is doing to address

the problems of their tests and other issues related to 2010.’’

I went to go see then who was in attendance at that hearing, and

I am pleased to report that both Representative Clay and Representative Maloney were both at the hearing as we began the

process of saying to the Census Bureau that GAO has told us and

we all know, as of March 1, 2006, that unless the Bureau undertakes the reforms necessary that were listed by GAO, that we

would be in the situation that we are in now.

We continued to receive assurances, and Chairman Clay reports

that, as he has chaired this subcommittee, that the Census Bureau

has continued to provide assurances that the tasks were going to

be met, and yet we are here again now.

Mr. Powner, you testified in that hearing in March, telling us the

measures that were necessary that the Census Bureau needed to

take in order to be successful.

So I want to ask the panel the question that I asked Secretary

Guitierrez, because it seems to me, from the hearings that we held

and the briefings that we held when I was chairman and that we

are facing today, that this is a mismanagement issue, that this is

something that was accomplishable. That is what I want to ask

each and every one of you, because today I believe we are being

told that it is not accomplishable within the time that is left. But

when we raised the issue and when the issue was first addressed

by GAO and there was even a road map, if you will, of what the

Census Bureau needed to do, it appeared that it was accomplishable then. So could you tell me? We will start at the left end of the

table. Was this task accomplishable?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, what I would say in answer to the key question you started out with is that my view, coming in when I did,

is that we clearly didn’t do everything we should. I think there

were things that both ourselves and the contractor could have done

better. I think we didn’t scope our requirements as fully as we

should have at the beginning of the process. We didn’t communicate well to our contractor in terms of what——

Mr. TURNER. Can you hold on a second? I don’t have that much

time. We only each get 5 minutes.

Mr. MURDOCK. OK.

Mr. TURNER. I have already heard the why we can’t do it now

or what impacted the inability to do it. I am starting from when

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this was tasked. When there was first a decision that this was

going to be undertaken, was it accomplishable? Technologically,

process-wise, was this accomplishable? Mr. Murdock, we will start

with you.

Mr. MURDOCK. I believe that at the time that it was accomplishable given the requirements that were on the table. It wouldn’t

have been accomplishable even then, sir, if all the requirements

that are now in place had been there. It wouldn’t have been accomplishable.

Mr. TURNER. Which were your requirements?

Mr. MURDOCK. Right. If we had the full requirements, it would

not have been accomplishable then in the given budget.

Mr. TURNER. When we had our hearing on March 1, 2006, when

GAO had reported that there was a problem with the project and

my statement in opening said that the hand-helds had failed and

that GAO had indicated what needed to be done in order to accomplish this in time, was it accomplishable then?

Mr. MURDOCK. I think it was. I think that when GAO reported

about the problems with the test of the hand-helds, they were not

Harris hand-helds. They were hand-helds that we had purchased

off the shelves, and we were testing them. We had every reason to

believe, based on the contract negotiations or the contract bids

where all of the companies actually put forth a skeletal version of

address canvassing, that the Harris hand-held would be far superior to the ones that we were using.

Mr. TURNER. OK. I am going to go down the line and I am going

to ask each person to answer this also, but I wanted to leave you

with one comment before I go on to let them answer this question,

and that is: there are several problems here that we are facing, one

of which, of course, is the just unbelievable waste of taxpayers’

money, the complete mismanagement of this project.

But the most important issue, the one that we addressed in the

four hearings and three congressional briefings that we had and in

this subcommittee when I chaired it is that people have to have

faith in the census. When the credibility of the census is brought

into question, it brings into question the processes that are used

and whether or not the data and outcomes are what we all need

to be able to rely on.

We are going to need to ensure that the plan that you have next

is one that everyone can look at and have those assurances, or we

are all going to question the process as it is going forward and the

end product.

Mr. Chairman, if you wouldn’t mind allowing me to continue

down the line to have them answer the question of was it accomplishable.

Mr. SCIRE ́. If I could add to that, I think that what you are observing here is not a failure in technology, it is a failure in management. It is also a failure in transparency.

You were asking earlier about when the Bureau could have

known. Well, last June the Bureau received reporting on the need

for the requirements.

In terms of transparency and going forward, I think it is important, for oversight purposes, for there to be a quicker turn-around

in the results of the various tests and operations and benchmarks

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that the Bureau needs to establish for the redesign, for the redesign in terms of both address canvassing and in terms of the nonresponse followup.

I will just point out that the address canvassing dress rehearsal

happened a year ago, and we are now today talking about changing

how that operation will be conducted. I don’t think you want to be

facing that a year from now, making decisions about how non-response followup is going to be conducted. So I think it would be fair

to ask for more rapid turn-around in results of these tests and

dress rehearsal operations, rather than the lengthy time that it has

been taking.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Mr. Powner?

Mr. POWNER. I agree with Mr. Scire ́. This is accomplishable. The

technology here is not hard. Clearly it was mismanagement. I

would contend even if you had defined those 400 requirements back

in the mid-2006 timeframe it was still accomplishable. This is not

that difficult.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Providakes, any comment?

Mr. PROVIDAKES. Yes. I have to agree with much of that statement. I have been involved in many complex IT programs across

the Department of Defense and Federal Government, and this is

not one of them.

Referring to an earlier statement regarding the requirements, I

agree with Dave Powner that having as much requirements up

front is good to have, but in today’s world, where I was mentioning

earlier, in the census where there’s this large cultural change you

have to expect the requirements to evolve.

What really was not put in place was the process that would

allow the requirements at some stage to evolve in the development

and system development of FDCA to converge to provide the operational capabilities to the user, because even the end user was still

sorting this out.

So to my mind it was more of a process issue between having a

set of initial hard requirements, putting in place a process that engaged both the contractor, the acquisition manager, and the user

that would allow the evolution and convergence of that. That didn’t

occur at this time.

Third, the topic of technology, this is not hard to do. I will look

closely and suggest that the Bureau do a scrub of an estimate of

the cost to go forward.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Ms. Janey, anything?

Ms. JANEY. No, sir. I agree. I think this was a doable task. Getting the volume of requirements changes as late in the process as

we got it, two-thirds of the way through the plan development

time, did have an impact. But I would point to address canvassing.

It worked. There were challenges that certainly came out of the

dress rehearsal, but that dress rehearsal was done a year ago.

Many of the technological issues that were encountered were addressed. It is not a technology issue. I think it was doable.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mrs. Maloney, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. I thank everyone for their testimony.

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I would like to ask Dr. Murdock and then Deputy Director Waite

and Mr. Scire ́, Mr. Powner, right on down the line to Ms. Janey,

as I said in my opening statement, I would like you to tell us what

goals or benchmarks we should have that are objective and accountable and measurable so that by the end of this administration

we can get some confidence that if you met them, and once this

body responded to your financial requested appropriately and you

got all the money that you need to accomplishment, that it would

actually work.

As Mr. Powner said, and Mr. Providakes, this is not that hard.

We should be able to accomplish this, but we haven’t been able to

accomplish it.

So I would like to just go down the line and just find out what

you should put out there to build confidence in us that you are

going to fix the problem, that you are fixing the problem. I would

like to also ask do you think we should have a monthly hearing or

monthly reports on the progress or the problems that you are confronting, so that at the end of the administration we can actually

get this done.

As some of you have testified, this should not be that difficult.

What do we need to get this done? And I believe that Congress in

a bipartisan way will provide you with the funding that you need,

but what benchmarks and really measurable items should be put

out before this committee to let us know and build confidence that

this is going to be accomplished?

We will start with Mr. Murdock and go right down the line.

Mr. MURDOCK. Let me begin by saying what we are doing in

terms of preparing ourselves for this, and another way of saying

that is that we do recognize we can’t continue to do things in the

way that we have in the past; that we have had to make changes,

and we have made. I will give you some of our plans relative to

future changes.

We have strengthened our management. We have a decennial

census director that comes from two backgrounds that are very important for us. He has an IT background and he has Decennial experience.

We have established or strengthening our management program

to include many of the elements that GAO has talked about, have

risk management process, issue identification, doing extensive

product testing, and increasing our communications, particularly

the communications between ourselves and our contractor, and instituting tighter budget and cost management.

We are beginning a process of embedding. By that what I mean

is having our people working at locations with the contractor so

that we can improve communication so we don’t have this kind of

gap that we had before in terms of getting rapid communication of

needs and want.

We have substantially increased the management intensity,

meaning the involvement, in particular, of the Deputy Director and

myself in the day-to-day operations of decennial census activities,

particularly this FDCA.

Let me give you some of the initial deadlines that we have. One

of those is that we want to obtain an integrated project schedule,

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which is one of the things that has been called for by a number

of groups. We plan to have that in about 45 days.

We plan, prior to that, to having plan for the NRFU process.

What I mean, a plan that tells us what we need to do in terms to

do this under the new replan objective, which is to do it on paper.

We will have that in 30 days. So 30 days for that, and integrated

program schedule in 45 days.

We plan to be doing address canvas testing of software within 60

days, and with ongoing then processes in terms of the embedding

that we have talked about.

We will flesh out in our plan, in our full plan, additional deadlines in terms of when we will do what and we will make sure that

in that there are milestones that you and everyone else can hold

us accountable for.

Mr. WAITE. I would just like to second a little bit some of the

stuff that Dr. Murdock talked about. There are two very serious activities that need to be completed and we need to have those milestones, and I think we need to meet with you as often as you feel

that we need to to make sure they get done. One is we have now

gone over to a paper NRFU. There is no plan in the schedule for

a paper NRFU, and so it is very critical that we get the paper

NRFU details together, as Dr. Murdock said, and that in this integrated plan that we find places in our schedule to make sure, before the end of this summer, that we can, in fact, get the non-response followup done when we need to do it in 2010.

Also, on the address canvassing, the main activities that Harris

will be working on this summer, assuming that we have the resources, will be going back and making sure that any issues that

were still unresolved from the dress rehearsal for address canvassing, or any issues that came up in the way of new requirements,

they can get that programming done and we should be testing that

within 60 days. If that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, the address canvassing to take place next spring is in some serious jeopardy.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Mr. Scire ́. Mr. SCIRE ́. Thank you.

I agree with all of those. I think that for the address canvassing

that there is a need for dates for the operational plan for large assignment areas. There would be a need for a deliverable or description of what their plans are for doing a restart/redo in the event

that the information that is transmitted from the address canvassing operation is inaccurate.

There is a need immediately, I think, to make public the address

canvassing assessment, which is, I believe, still in draft.

There is, as mentioned, an integrated project schedule or integrated plan is something that we have recommended for a long

time. The Bureau has taken some initial steps in that direction,

but there is still more that needs to be done there in terms of laying out the cost of individual operations, the risk of those operations, and the milestones in a way that you can see what progress

the Bureau is making and what new assumptions, new information

from the various tests, would cause shifts or changes in that integrated schedule and plan and cost.

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I think there is a need for a plan for a NRFU, which Dr.

Murdock described. The testing of the software for address canvassing, which was mentioned. A clear description of what it is the

Bureau is expecting from Harris in terms of a dashboard which is

anticipated in the contract which would provide possibly real-time

information during address canvassing of how that is proceeding.

I think by laying that out, that is going to help also with this

communication as to what is needed in terms of performance during the address canvassing operation.

I will leave it there. I am sure that Mr. Powner will talk about

things in the technology arena.

Mr. POWNER. I would just like to reinforce the integrated schedule, as I mentioned in my brief oral statement. It is very important

that we understand when the technologies are going to be deployed, when they are going to be tested, when the operations are

going to be in place. There is a lot that is going to need to be tested

in terms of the interfaces between the various systems, along with

the operations. We have called for clear end-to-end testing where

we actually test significant functionality. All of that is up in the air

right now.

I think what is key for the Congress is that you have that integrated schedule, you understand the critical path, and that they

are held to that.

One other item. Forty-five days, I assume there was already an

integrated schedule or aspects of an integrated schedule, and the

sooner we can get that in place, if it was a bit quicker than 45

days, all the better.

Mr. PROVIDAKES. I go pretty much all the rest. Clearly, the test

and acceptance schedule. I think my biggest concern right now

would be cost. I am having a hard time understanding the cost of

the increase that has been submitted, and I think it is very important that the Bureau get with the contractor to understand those

costs.

MITRE has done a preliminary review of those estimated costs,

and I cannot work it.

Mr. CLAY. Please let me inject right here that we would like from

you, Mr. Providakes, as well as GAO, a scrubbing of Harris’ contract. We would like your analysis of just what the American taxpayer is paying for. Are we actually stuck with the Harris Corp.

at this point? And would you report back to this committee as soon

as possible on whether we are actually stuck with this contract,

this unreasonable condition, and give us your unbiased opinion?

Mr. Issa is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. ISSA. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Janey, do you know a gentleman named Vance Roland?

Ms. JANEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ISSA. And are you aware of a letter that he sent out on February 13th confirming the stopping of work on a number of these

projects, including the 140,000 hand-helds?

Ms. JANEY. I am.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And did that cause a cost to Harris in that personnel were put on something else, laid off, or contracts were canceled

or postponed for some period of time?

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Ms. JANEY. Going back in time, Mr. Roland’s letter of February

13th was actually a request for clarification of a letter that we received from the Census Bureau February 11th that limited and directed us to focus on only four specific aspects.

Mr. ISSA. I have read both letters. I guess the question is: was

there action taken after this letter that caused some overruns,

costs, changes, delays? What action was taken by Harris?

Ms. JANEY. We did focus our staff and our subcontractors to the

letter that we received from the Census Bureau. That did result in

some people being reassigned or focused on other things.

Mr. ISSA. And I believe they are already in the record, but if they

are not I will submit them for the record, both the letter to Mr. Roland and his response.

Mr. CLAY. Without objection, and thank you.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Murdock, you were on board for a very short period of time when the letter to Mr. Roland by Mr. Ross Jeffries

went out, the contracting officer. Have you read that letter?

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. And I read the letter, and to me it says stop or limit

your activities. Would you agree that is what it appears to say?

Mr. MURDOCK. No, I would not.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Then have you read the letter back to Mr. Roland

from Harris Corp.? Would you agree that they believed that it indicated that and were responding in their letter?

Mr. MURDOCK. In our letter, which we had sent——

Mr. ISSA. No, no. We have already moved past your letter.

Mr. MURDOCK. OK.

Mr. ISSA. Because I interpret it different than you interpret it,

and I am willing to have that. I want to know about the Harris letter that very clearly says we are in receipt and blank, blank, blank.

Is that pretty clearly saying that they believed that the letter said

that they were to cease activities, cease or limit?

Mr. MURDOCK. They indicated to us that they saw it as such a

letter.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And the question is: why wasn’t there an immediate reaction out of your offices if that was erroneous?

Mr. MURDOCK. There were discussions that were done with——

Mr. ISSA. No, no. Why wasn’t there immediate action? In other

words, why would even 1 day go by when a vendor says we received your letter 2 days ago and we think you are telling us to

stop?

Mr. MURDOCK. There were telephone calls made to, in fact, Mr.

Roland.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Would you provide the committee with records and

personnel that made those calls and the substance of those calls?

I don’t have them?

Mr. MURDOCK. I will.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that.

Now, Mr. Murdock, you are a political appointee of the President.

Mr. MURDOCK. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. How many appointees of the President are there in the

Census Bureau?

Mr. MURDOCK. I don’t know the exact number.

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Mr. ISSA. Three?

Mr. MURDOCK. Three.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So substantially, of the many thousands of employees, it is a career position except for you and two others?

Mr. MURDOCK. Basically, yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Mr. Waite, this is the 23rd census. I don’t want

to be too sarcastic, but this didn’t come as a surprise to you that

2010 was going to be another one, did it?

Mr. WAITE. No, sir.

Mr. ISSA. And you were on board for the last one?

Mr. WAITE. Yes, sir, I was.

Mr. ISSA. And the last one cost us, the last 10-year period, which

we are still in, cost us how much, versus the $15 billion for this

10-year period?

Mr. WAITE. The last census cost about $6.7 billion.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So $6 billion for 240 million people, $15 billion for

300 million people. Throw in inflation. This one is presently going

to cost us more per person. I get it as about $50 a person to conduct, more than the previous one, even adjusted for inflation; is

that correct?

Mr. WAITE. I don’t have those figures. Fifty dollars more per person?

Mr. ISSA. No, $50 per person. I just did the numbers of $15 billion into 300 million.

Mr. WAITE. That sounds about right, yes.

Mr. ISSA. The only thing I am really good at is money. I seldom

miss a decimal point when it comes to the dollars.

Mr. WAITE. That’s good.

Mr. ISSA. Billions and trillions sometimes get me, but I do my

best.

So for the American people, a Constitutional responsibility, 23rd

time it is being done, clearly in the Constitution you have to do a

physical count of Americans, including a followup, to diligently try

to get every American counted.

Mr. WAITE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ISSA. Why is it, separate from Harris on again, off again,

first 400 things to do, then 600, then 1,000, just this year. Separate

from all of those things, which I understand, can you tell this committee why we are going to pay more, adjusted for inflation, to do

it than we would have done if we simply counted the way we did

the last time? I mean, this is a career. You folks are there year in,

year out. You have 10 years to plan each of these. Government Accountability I am sure would be glad to answer the question after

you take your best shot at it, but tell us why we shouldn’t be outraged that it is costing us more this time than last time, adjusted

for inflation.

Mr. WAITE. Well, the taxpayer is getting more product. A big

chunk of that increased cost is that, instead of getting a long form

once every 10 years with that information, the American Community Survey is providing you that information annually, so it is a

lot more current and it is a lot more useful since it is current. By

the time you get to 2009, the 2000 long-form data is not as useful

as it could be.

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You are also getting a GPS-aligned TIGER system, which will

virtually eliminate what we call geocoding errors, counting you

once but counting you in the wrong place. That’s because enumerators don’t always know exactly where they are. If they get the help

from technology, they can put that in the correct place.

The real driver for cost, in my opinion—that’s my opinion—we

have set out for ourselves as a people a goal of virtually 100 percent counting. The last three or 4 percent are very, very expensive.

Nobody at Census Bureau or at the Congress or anywhere else has

been prepared to say well, we don’t need to have 100 percent. We

can live with 96 percent.

My opinion is unless something is done about that, and you are

always continually striving for every last person, these costs that

you see at census will continue to go up. I don’t see anything that

is going to stop that.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I hope the Government Accountability

Office could answer their view of it, but I do want to say that, at

least as one person on the committee, every American needs to be

counted in the census, and if it costs us more to do it, at least I,

for one, think it is well invested and not a choice. I would like to

hear sort of the other part of why this went up so high, if you could

indulge us.

Mr. SCIRE ́. If I may, in addition to what Mr. Waite described, the

response rate or the difficulty in getting people to respond to surveys generally has increased over time, and that explains part of

the increase in cost of the decades. Also, the nature of households

is different, where it might be more difficult to count some households today than 10 years ago. There are far more households than

there were 10 years ago. But nonetheless, as you pointed out, in

a constant dollar basis and on a per person basis, the cost is definitely going up over the decades.

I would add to that there is a lot of uncertainty right now as to

what this will cost. The estimates that you are receiving right now

I would not necessarily characterize as being accurate or credible.

We are doing work right now which is looking closely at those

issues. But, just to give you one measure here, and that has to do

with assumptions regarding address canvassing operation, in the

life cycle cost model it is estimated that address canvassers would

be able to do 25.6 housing units per hour. They actually discovered

in the dress rehearsal that they are doing more like 13.

I am not certain that is reflected in the estimates that you are

receiving right now, so if that were to be put into the cost model

I would expect the cost to be even greater.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Issa.

Mr. Issa, would you provide us with the copies of all of the material you have inserted into the record?

Mr. ISSA. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much.

Mr. Hodes of New Hampshire, recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In 2008 the GAO issued a report saying the entire 2010 census

was high risk. One of the principal reasons was that the Census

Bureau failed to develop an integrated and comprehensive plan to

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control its costs and manage its operations. Every year since 2004

the GAO made the same recommendation, and every single year it

seems the Census Bureau ignored it to the tune of billions of dollars of wasted taxpayers’ money.

Mr. Murdock, in your written testimony you say at page three,

‘‘We now understand that the problem was due in part to a lack

of effective communication between the Census Bureau and the

prime contractor, and to difficulties in developing the full scope of

the project within deadlines.’’ That’s what you said.

I just want to get through and make sure I understand some of

what may be euphemism and what you mean. When you say we,

are you meaning the royal we, meaning the Census Bureau as a

whole?

Mr. MURDOCK. I mean the Census Bureau. Yes. Particularly

management.

Mr. HODES. OK. So you acknowledge that the Census Bureau

has ignored the GAO’s recommendations for developing a comprehensive cost management and planning process since 2004?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, I was not there, of course, and all I can

know is what I have seen in the same documents that you are seeing, and I think we should have followed the advice more fully than

we did. But that is easy to say from hindsight.

Mr. HODES. Mr. Waite, you would agree with that?

Mr. WAITE. I would agree that we had plans for every piece that

we were testing. We were not working without plans. But we didn’t

have all those plans integrated.

Mr. HODES. And you also say, Mr. Murdock, that this was due,

in part, to a lack of effective communication. How can we be assured that there is now effective communication between the Bureau and the contractor?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, I think the very program I talked about a

few minutes ago, we have recognized that the communication was

not what it should have been. We have restructured our program

to ensure that communication is there. We recognize, the contractor recognizes that we need to cooperate to ensure that this census

is completed on time and as accurately as possible. So we have

committed, I think, each part to ensure that we move forward, because both of us, both the contractor and certainly we in the Census Bureau want to get a complete and accurate census.

Mr. HODES. Good. I want to get to the question of the operational

requirements, management, and oversight in the following way.

Mr. Powner, in 2006 you testified that the Census Bureau had not

year approved a baseline set of operational requirements for the

contract, am I correct?

Mr. POWNER. That is correct.

Mr. HODES. You also warned that the Census Bureau was planning to rely on the contractor, not its own Government experts, to

help refine requirements, project plans, and performance measures,

right?

Mr. POWNER. Correct.

Mr. HODES. So it sounds to me like you were warning that the

Bureau was relying on Harris to set up the operational requirements.

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Mr. POWNER. Clearly there was an over-reliance on the contractor.

Mr. HODES. Now, Harris, through Ms. Janey, has just testified

here today that their problem, in large part, was because they

weren’t getting requirements from the Bureau. You heard that testimony. Can you help me square the testimony you gave and what

actually happened? Who failed to do what in terms of the operational requirements, and how can we be assured today that the

proper party is going to manage this, oversee it, and set the requirements?

Mr. POWNER. The requirements are clearly the Government’s responsibility. OK? So clearly the Government needs to define to the

contractor what it wants, so they are primarily at fault. This issue

of miscommunication and now that we are communicating that is

going to solve the problem, I mean, the problem here was

miscommunication. The problem was an over-reliance on the contractor. The problem was poor program management. And also the

problem was poor leadership and governance. So that’s what needs

to occur. We need to shore up the requirements, we need to fix the

program management, and we need to get the executives engaged

in overseeing this.

That is where we have some concerns, because you just don’t flip

a switch and then all of the sudden you are performing program

management and executive level leadership in a stellar way.

There was a mention of IRS. Years ago that was the problem IT

project. Now when you look at their program management and executive level leadership it is one of the better in the Government.

Why? Because they worked at it for years. So you can’t just flip the

switch, so that’s a huge concern and that’s why we made the comments that the folks at the Department level are going to need to

also play a role in overseeing this whole initiative.

Mr. HODES. As you sit here today, you are still not confident that

we have in place the management team at the Bureau to get done

what you have just said needs to get done?

Mr. POWNER. We still have concerns, and one of our recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce has been when this

happens with other agencies and departments, I mean, there are

people who have a history of coming in and rescuing problem programs. There are some folks who are very good at doing that. Perhaps we need to look at that and look for help.

Mr. HODES. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Sarbanes, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Waite, you said plans weren’t integrated. You had plans, but

they weren’t integrated, right?

Mr. WAITE. Correct.

Mr. SARBANES. Why weren’t they integrated?

Mr. WAITE. Well, the integration is a lot more difficult. We were

behind schedule, and we would put a plan together, for example,

for address canvassing, and we had detailed plans of how to do

that address canvassing, but we didn’t have that integrated into

the operations that would go behind it. We need to do that, and we

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are working on that integration, and we now are very, very close

to getting that done, but it is too late. It is a lot longer than it

should be. It is a very big job. There’s literally thousands of activities that need to make sure that they fit together.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Powner, do you do integration by having an

integration team? And what are the things about this census, if

there are things about this census, that make it apparently a so

much more complicated management exercise than the last census?

In other words, are you prepared to excuse the lack of management

that you see based on some new and different dimensions of the

way we want to see the census done this time around, or not?

Mr. POWNER. Clearly I don’t believe there is an excuse. Many aspects of the operations are similar in that clearly individuals in

this room and at this table have experience in conducting prior census. I think there is a unique aspect where they are relying more

on technology and they do not have a culture that has a history of

effectively acquiring the technology.

I am not saying that is an excuse, but I do think you want experienced individuals managing those technology acquisitions, and

clearly there is room for improvement here.

Mr. SARBANES. Is there more reliance this time around on outside contractors because of the technology requirements?

Mr. POWNER. Yes, there is more, but we also had technology with

the 2000 census. Interestingly enough, there is some of the same

lessons learned. The IG issued a report on the lessons learned from

2000, and this whole requirements issue came up in 2000 where we

had cost increases with the technology that was acquired then.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Murdock, you all appear to have conceded

that there was a breakdown in management, and that has certainly been the observation from the GAO, so I am curious as to

specifically what changes in the management process and the people. You don’t have to give me names, but what are the kinds of

positions, management positions that are being looked at to make

sure that going forward this doesn’t happen again.

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, we certainly have done a number of things.

I talked about the intensification of management, but we are also

going to increase the role of our contractor that helps us by watching us from the outside, so to speak, even though they are our contractor, and tell us when we are going away. MITRE is going to

play a much more active role in the management of our projects

to tell us when we may be doing things that are not in good concert

with the best practices.

As I said, we have a new Decennial Director who has experience

in IT as well as decennial census. I think, more importantly, we

are going to have processes such as recurrent meetings between

ourselves and the contractor, daily and biweekly meetings that look

at individual risk factors. What are the risks that we are dealing

with now? Important to us, or perhaps lacking for us in the past,

has been an am the of decisiveness in terms of making decisions

in a quick manner so we can move forward to complete our objectives. We are instituting processes that will ensure that decisions

are made on key factors in a timely manner.

Very important, as well, is there is a good indication that we

didn’t do as much testing as we should. The end-to-end testing that

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one of the other panelists talked about is a key part of our plans

going forward. We are going to ensure that our products are working before we take them to the next stage in development and application.

So we are substantially changing the processes that have been

used and we do have people such as myself that are new in this

process, but which also have, if you will, a new set of eyes to look

at what we have done and to move forward.

Mr. SARBANES. Well, there were so many warnings that came

along the way, it is just curious why you didn’t do these things,

why the Census Bureau didn’t respond that way before.

Can I ask one real quick question of Mr. Powner and Mr. Scire ́?

Mr. CLAY. Sure.

Mr. SARBANES. Can you just tell us, in terms of the redesign,

looking ahead, what are the things that you worry the most about

not happening that need to happen, the sort of risk points? Take

two or three that maybe aren’t keeping you up nights, hopefully,

but when you focus on it you could predict that if there is going

to be a problem, if there is going to be a breakdown in the redesign, here is where it is going to be and here is when it is going

to happen.

Mr. POWNER. Well, from a technology point of view, there are

three things that I would still worry about. One is requirements.

We still need to stabilize those requirements. There are other contracts. There was a comment made that the DRIS contract is on

schedule. It is on schedule after they revised the schedule, so that

is not on schedule, and there are still some requirements issues

there. So requirements concerns me. Managing the many interfaces, that would concern me. There are a lot of interfaces where

these things are going to be interacting together, the various systems, and then testing. There is a lot of testing that is going to

need to occur between now and the Decennial.

We were betting that a lot of the testing was going to occur with

the dress rehearsal. Now that we have deferred functionality and

got in trouble, we are pushing all that, so that makes testing even

more important post-dress rehearsal.

So, again, requirements, interfaces, and testing are going to be

three areas that we are going to need to watch closely.

Mr. SARBANES. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much.

Ms. Janey, just a final round of questioning, just for clarification.

Has the final version of the hand-held been tested with MAF/

TIGER? Mr. Murray, you may testify.

Mr. MURRAY. Good afternoon. Right now the final version of the

hand-held with the MAF/TIGER data base has not yet been tested.

It has not been tested with the final version because, as Mr. Waite

mentioned earlier, there are still a few counties that are still outstanding to be delivered for MAF/TIGER, but that program is currently ahead of schedule on delivering the counties. There are just

a few remaining that we have to get. Once those are delivered,

then we will go through in the middle of the summer, as I think

it was Dr. Murdock mentioned earlier, and we will start the testing

with the final software baseline.

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Mr. CLAY. Mr. Waite and Dr. Murdock, do you agree with the

Mr. Murray’s testimony?

Mr. WAITE. Yes. We have three counties that have been delivered

by Harris that haven’t been quality checked, although we have

been getting 99.9 percent approval. We don’t expect a problem.

When they get done, which should be in just a few weeks, at the

most, maybe a few days, then we will have a final version of the

TIGER data base.

Harris has tested with the original version of the TIGER data

base, so the main difference is that we are updating the street

centerlines. We will be ready to test those with that input into the

machine next month.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that.

Mr. Murray and Ms. Janey, according to the Bureau, many of the

requirements that Harris received on January 16, 2008, were modifications to existing requirements. According to their record, 286 of

the 418 requirements were clarifications of existing requirements.

Harris doesn’t see it that way. In your opinion, they are new requirements. How many of the requirements were actually new requirements according to Harris’ record, and how many were modifications to or clarifications of requirements that were set before

January 16, 2008?

Ms. JANEY. In my testimony, Mr. Chairman, I said that we saw

more than 400 new or altered modifications, so we were not presenting that all 400 were new. Our number may disagree some

with the Bureau in terms of how many were clarifications, but, as

I pointed out in my testimony, at this late stage of development

any change requires a significant amount of re-evaluation to ensure

that it is going to work, basically.

Mr. CLAY. Of the 418 requirements, how many did Harris agree

to complete and how many did you determine you would not be

able to complete?

Ms. JANEY. I would ask for a clarification of your question. If

your question was including an automated NRFU or assuming a

paper-based NRFU.

Mr. CLAY. For the paper.

Ms. JANEY. For paper?

Mr. CLAY. Yes.

Ms. JANEY. In or about 246, there were only about 85 that we

said were not able to be done, and there were some that are already implemented and some others that we are still in discussions

with the Bureau as to how those will be disposed.

There are some technical ways of handling some of the issues.

There are other process ways that the Bureau could opt to handle

some of the issues.

Mr. CLAY. And at this time how many of the requirements are

not completed?

Ms. JANEY. Well, we haven’t begun work on any of the 400 since

that was received. We have not been authorized by the Bureau to

begin work on any of those.

Mr. CLAY. OK. But you still are under contract?

Ms. JANEY. Excuse me?

Mr. CLAY. You are still under contract, correct?

Ms. JANEY. Yes, sir.

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Mr. CLAY. And you intend on performing? But you waited on the

OK from the Bureau?

Ms. JANEY. We have to be authorized.

Mr. CLAY. OK.

Mr. MURRAY. What the Bureau has authorized us to do on these

requirements is to take them to the design phase. The first step in

our design process is a system requirements review and a system

design review, and the Bureau has authorized us to take it to that

point in the design.

And just one other point of clarification. These 416 or so requirements are not for paper NRFU. The paper NRFU requirements

have not yet been defined.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Let me ask about the justification of the new cost

estimates for the census, particularly the dramatic increase in the

cost of the Harris contract.

Mr. Murdock and Mr. Waite, my understanding is that the cost

increases that are under the control of the Census Bureau have

been carefully scrubbed and analyzed; is that accurate?

Mr. MURDOCK. Certainly they have been scrubbed. They may be

scrubbed some more before they are finalized.

Mr. CLAY. Well, my concern is whether the cost increases for

Harris have been subject to the same scrutiny. The contract was

originally going to cost about $600 million for over 500,000 handheld computers. Under the new contract, Harris will produce only

150,000 computers, less than half the number called for under the

original contract, yet the amount will skyrocket to $1.3 billion. The

result is that the taxpayer is now paying twice as much for fewer

than half the number of computers.

We are also being told that Harris will now be paid hundreds of

millions of dollars just in overhead. This dramatic increase seems

hard to justify or to understand. What kind of analysis did the

Census Bureau conduct to verify Harris’ budget numbers?

Mr. MURDOCK. This is a rough order of magnitude and was represented as such by Harris. It has yet to be evaluated, validated,

and negotiated, which is the process that goes forward after a

rough order of magnitude is done.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Under the new budget the Census Bureau is

going to be running the non-response followup and not Harris, yet

I understand that Harris is now going to be paid an extra $80 million for supporting this effort. Harris is doing less but being paid

more. How does this make any sense?

Mr. MURDOCK. Well, I think it is important to understand that

one of the major activities that they are performing in this whole

process is the operational control system. In fact, even though we

go to paper, we are still dependent on the operational control system, which is, in a sense, the brains of the operation. It tells us

how we are doing in terms of field operations, how many additional

places there are to go, what the productivity is of different groups,

etc. That process is still being developed by our contractor.

Now, again, we have not, as I said, done the total evaluation on

this contract, and that process will go forward.

Mr. CLAY. An operational control system was not part of the

original $600 million contract?

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Mr. MURDOCK. There was an operational control system, but it

was of a different nature. It was for an automated process, not for

a paper-based process.

Mr. CLAY. My understanding is that the Commerce Department,

not the Census Bureau, took the lead in scrutinizing the new Harris contract terms; is that correct?

Mr. MURDOCK. In terms of that process, the evaluation and so

forth has not begun in terms of that process.

Mr. CLAY. OK. So you will work in conjunction with the Commerce Department?

Mr. MURDOCK. We will work in conjunction to do that, yes.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you.

I recognize the gentleman from California.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I will continue in the same line that

you have been going.

You know, up until now we have been talking history. I think

now we are trying to talk the go-forward on a couple of these areas.

Let me understand, 418 changes, modifications, or clarifications

that have occurred. If I understand the normal procedure properly

that you are going to follow, Ms. Janey, you receive these. You interpret them. You produce your interpretation of what it is going

to take to comply with them. You then come back, and that is what

you have been authorized to do. You then come back and say this

is what we believe you asked for, this is what we agree to do, and

this is what it will cost. Is that roughly the next step?

Ms. JANEY. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And at that juncture, if you have misunderstood

or over-complied, then the Bureau will have the ability to say that

is not what we meant, we don’t want you to do this, you can do

less, there is a simpler way; is that correct?

Ms. JANEY. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. So we are in a position where it is, to a great extent,

not in your hands, but in your hands as the Census Bureau to determine how many of these 418 and what they really mean. That

is more or less correct. I am seeing nodding, so nobody disagrees

here.

So it is a little premature to know what it is going to cost, but

the two things we know are some of these 418 will represent material, additional taskings for which there will be additional costs in

addition to your cost of preparing it, correct?

Ms. JANEY. That’s correct.

Mr. ISSA. And if I understand you correctly, when the decision

was made to go from automated to paper, the overhead of your control system, which is the part that the chairman was speaking of,

by definition is more expensive, more difficult. Is that also true? I

know what it is like to look at an electronic data system that is

transferring back and forth with WalMart from my old company,

and I know what it was like to go back and forth with invoices.

There is no question in my mind which one costs more.

Am I getting that right, that is one of the reasons that I believe

$80 million, to a certain extent we are going with a more expensive

system or less efficient system than anticipated because of paper;

is that right?

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Ms. JANEY. Largely, yes. I wouldn’t characterize it as more difficult; I would classify it as different. And it should be pointed out

again, sir——

Mr. ISSA. I always think of difficult as expensive, for some reason. The dollars are what I was focusing on. And it is more expensive. It is going to take more people, more time, and therefore cost

more money.

Ms. JANEY. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK. From the GAO’s standpoint, do you feel comfortable that you have the transparency necessary with both the

vendor and the Bureau to ensure that this latest round of changes

doesn’t skyrocket and that we are not back here again looking at

yet another increase.

I knew I would have one last question that would not necessarily

be sure, we can.

Mr. POWNER. Well, right now here is what we would look for. We

would want to understand what the process is. I mean, clearly they

are going to look at those requirements, the contractor, they are

going to come up with costs, schedules, and then the question is:

what does the Government do to validate that? That can be done

different ways. Some Federal agencies and departments have internal capability to validate contractor schedules and estimates, some

don’t. And if you don’t you can go out and get an independent assessment of that. Also, folks like MITRE can help with that assessment.

I would suggest they get help to make sure that the schedule and

the costs are realistic.

Mr. SCIRE ́. If I could just add to that, we are also looking at the

cost for the entire Decennial, and part of the estimate you are getting represent more than contract costs.

Mr. ISSA. I realize it is $5 per person per year if you break $50

into 10 years.

Mr. SCIRE ́. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. If you break it into weeks, it is even cheaper.

Mr. SCIRE ́. One of the largest cost elements here is the hiring of

half a million temporary field workers, and so assumptions about

productivity for those field workers, for example, can have a big affect on the ultimate life cycle costs. Same can be said for the address canvassing operation. While much smaller, if you need far

more people and more devices to conduct that because of your finding that individuals are not working as many hours, or, in addition

to that, while they are working they are not as effective, you are

going to have higher costs.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And we have been called to a vote. I would only,

not cynically, but seriously, suggest to the chairman that perhaps

one staff member from each side of the dias here needs to be available for all of you to see if, in fact, the predictions made here today

stay on schedule, because I know the chairman undoubtedly will

call another hearing like this. I would hope between now and then

that our staff on either side of the aisle not be blindsided by additional problems.

I, as one, would invite any of you that see a problem to communicate with both the majority and minority so that, in fact, we are

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not here again astonished that things have been delayed or derailed.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much. This was a

very worthwhile hearing.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for suggesting it, too.

Mr. Sarbanes, you are recognized for a second round, if you

would like.

Mr. SARBANES. I do have one question for the GAO. You talked

about not having a rehearsal. There is not another major rehearsal

coming in terms of doing the testing, so what could happen? I

mean, just paint a scenario for me. Could we end up with 500,000

temporary workers out in the field working on something that they

are complaining about? I mean, is that a possible scenario? And,

along those lines, if the technology is still being worked out while

the census takers are being trained, potentially you could have a

situation where you are going to have to change direction on them,

which could create problems in the field.

I am trying to get a sense practically of what could happen in

the field as a result of not getting enough testing done ahead of

time.

Mr. SCIRE ́. Right. That’s possible, and that is why it is so important to do everything. The Bureau needs to do everything in its

power to test and understand and lay out specifically what its

plans are for each of these operations.

We have talked about end-to-end testing in terms of the software. There also needs to be testing of the linkages between operations and the systems that support them. That is why I think

some of the milestones and benchmarks that we talked about earlier are so important. That’s the only thing that is going to give you

any assurances that the Bureau will be in a position, come 2010,

that they don’t experience what you are describing and have to

make some fundamental changes in the operations while they are

unfolding.

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes.

I would hope that the next time the stakeholders of the 2010 decennial census meet we can reassure the American public, we can

reassure this panel that we have a clear-cut path to a successful

decennial census without all of these issues being on the table,

with a real plan that we go forward with it. You certainly will hear

again from this committee, and hopefully we will come together

knowing just where we are going from there.

Let me thank all of the witnesses for their testimony today.

That concludes the hearing.

[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committees were adjourned.]

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