United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Committee on Governmental Affairs

U.S. Senate

For Release on Delivery

Expected at

10:00 a.m. EDT

Thursday

July 30, 1998

DECENNIAL CENSUS

Preliminary Observations

on the Results to Date of the

Dress Rehearsal and the

Census Bureau’s Readiness

for 2000

Statement of

J. Christopher Mihm

Associate Director, Federal Management

 and Workforce Issues

General Government Division

GAO/T-GGD-98-178

Summary 

Preliminary Observations on the Results to

Date of the Dress Rehearsal and the Census

Bureau’s Readiness for 2000

When GAO last testified before Congress in March 1998, it noted that,

although the Census Bureau had made progress in addressing some of the

problems that occurred during the 1990 Census, key decennial census

activities faced continuing challenges. The situation today is much the

same.

The census dress rehearsal, currently underway at three

sites—Sacramento, CA; 11 counties in the Columbia, SC area; and

Menominee County in Wisconsin, including the Menominee American

Indian Reservation—is the last remaining field test before the decennial

census is administered. Within the constraints and limitations imposed by

the dress rehearsal setting, the Bureau to date has shown a general ability

to implement the dress rehearsal at the three locations according to its

operational timetable and plan. Certain census activities, such as staffing

the dress rehearsal operations and completing field operations on

schedule, appear to have gone well.

However, the dress rehearsal experiences also have underscored the fact

that the Bureau still faces major obstacles to a cost-effective census. For

example, mail response rates remain problematic, and local partnerships

had limited success. Further, the Bureau’s general ability to conduct the

dress rehearsal according to its operational plan, while encouraging, is not

necessarily a predictor of success in 2000. Because the dress rehearsal was

performed at three sites, the capacity of regional and headquarters offices,

as well as a number of essential census-taking operations, could not be

fully tested under census-like conditions. Finally, the most important

outcome measure—the quality of the census data collected—is not yet

available.

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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I am pleased to be here today to provide an update on the Census Bureau’s

dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census and the Bureau’s readiness for

carrying out the 2000 Decennial Census. The dress rehearsal, currently

under way at three sites—Sacramento, CA; 11 counties in the Columbia,

SC area; and Menominee County in Wisconsin, including the Menominee

American Indian Reservation—is designed to demonstrate major

operations, procedures, and questions that are planned for the decennial

census.

At your request, my statement focuses on how key census-taking

operations have performed thus far during the dress rehearsal and the

implications that may exist for 2000. When we last testified before

Congress in March 1998, we noted that, although the Bureau had made

progress in addressing some of the problems that occurred during the 1990

Census, key activities faced continuing challenges.1

 The situation today is

much the same. On the one hand, certain census activities, such as staffing

the dress rehearsal operations, appear to have gone well. On the other

hand, measures of other activities, such as the mail response rate, suggest

that the Bureau still faces major obstacles to a cost-effective census.

Moreover, while the dress rehearsal activities done thus far have

demonstrated the Bureau’s general ability to execute the dress rehearsal

according to its operational timetable and plan, the important outcome

measure—the quality of the data collected—is not yet available. Further,

the Bureau’s general ability to conduct the dress rehearsal according to its

operational plan, while encouraging, is not necessarily a predictor of

success in 2000. Because the dress rehearsal was performed at three sites,

the capacity of regional and headquarters offices, as well as a number of

essential census-taking operations, could not be fully tested under

census-like conditions.

As you know, Mr Chairman, uncertainty continues to surround the final

design of the decennial census. Congress has not endorsed the Bureau’s

planned use of statistical sampling to improve the accuracy of the

population counts because of Congressional concerns over the validity,

legality, and operational feasibility of the Bureau’s statistical sampling and

estimation procedures. The Bureau is now planning for both a sampling

and nonsampling census until a final decision on the design is made.

Elements of each are being tested during the dress rehearsal. The Bureau

1

Decennial Census: Preparations for Dress Rehearsal Underscore the Challenges for 2000

(GAO/T-GGD-98-84, Mar. 26, 1998).

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is using sampling and statistical estimation methods at the Sacramento

site, in accordance with its plans for a sampling census. At the South

Carolina site, the Bureau’s procedures are to follow up on all

nonresponding households just as it was to do nationwide in the 1990

Census. At the Menominee dress rehearsal site, the Bureau is to follow up

on all nonresponding households, but it is also using sampling and

statistical estimation to improve the accuracy of the population count.

My comments today are based on our ongoing review of key census-taking

operations that could significantly affect the cost and accuracy of the 2000

Census. They include such activities as (1) creating a complete and

accurate address list, (2) obtaining a high level of public cooperation

through an effective census promotion and outreach effort, (3) staffing

census-taking operations with an adequate workforce, (4) processing

census data accurately and using technology efficiently and effectively,

and (5) carrying out field activities including both nonresponse follow-up

and sampling and statistical estimation procedures.

To assess these activities, we (1) made several visits to the dress rehearsal

sites and the Bureau’s data capture center in Jeffersonville, IN;

(2) observed key census-taking operations; (3) interviewed Bureau

headquarters officials, staff from regional and local census offices, and

individual enumerators and their supervisors; and (4) reviewed relevant

documents and data the Bureau prepared about these operations. To

obtain a local perspective on the dress rehearsal, we conducted in-person

and telephone interviews with local officials at the three dress rehearsal

sites on their experiences in reviewing address lists, promoting the census,

and recruiting and hiring census workers.

Because the dress rehearsal is still under way and more comprehensive

data on the results of the dress rehearsal are not yet available, our

observations today should be considered preliminary and the Bureau’s

data are subject to change pending further refinements and analysis.

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Dress Rehearsal

Experiences Confirm

Need for Revised

Approach to

Developing Address

List

One of our long-standing concerns has been the Bureau’s ability to build a

complete and accurate address list and develop precise maps. Accurate

addresses are critical for delivering questionnaires, avoiding unnecessary

and expensive follow-up efforts at vacant or nonexistent residences, and

establishing a universe of households for sampling and statistical

estimation. Precise maps are essential for counting persons at their proper

locations—the cornerstone of congressional reapportionment and

redistricting. Bureau maps are also used for certain census-taking

operations such as nonresponse follow-up that entails following up on

households that fail to mail back a census questionnaire.

To build its address list, which is known as the Master Address File

(MAF), the Bureau initially planned, in part, to (1) use addresses provided

by the Postal Service, (2) merge these addresses with the address file the

Bureau created during the 1990 Census, (3) conduct limited checks of the

accuracy of selected addresses, and (4) send the addresses to local

governments and Indian tribes for verification as part of a process called

Local Update of Census Addresses.

However, as we reported in March 1998, the Bureau concluded in

September 1997 that its reliance on postal and 1990 Census addresses to

construct its 2000 Census address list would not yield a sufficiently

complete and accurate list.2

 The Bureau therefore decided that redesigned

procedures were needed in order to generate a MAF for the 2000 Census

that, as a whole, was 99 percent complete. Under the revised approach,

after local address review, the Bureau plans to verify physically the

completeness and accuracy of the address file for the 2000 Census by

canvassing neighborhoods across the country. The Bureau expects the

new approach will cost an additional $108.7 million.

The experiences of the dress rehearsal suggest that the Bureau was

correct in the decision to revise its procedures for building its address list.

One early indicator of the accuracy of the address list is the number of

census questionnaires returned to the Bureau by the Postal Service as

undeliverable. Of the approximately 394,000 questionnaires mailed at the

Sacramento and South Carolina dress rehearsal sites, Bureau data show

that about 48,000 (12.2 percent) were returned as undeliverable.3

According to a Bureau official, the Bureau had expected to do better than

2

GAO/T-GGD-98-84, Mar. 26, 1998.

3

At the Menominee site, census questionnaires were distributed using a process called “update/leave”

whereby census enumerators hand-deliver questionnaires to each household, update the address, and

leave the questionnaire for respondents to mail back.

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that, based on the 1995 test census results. For the 1995 test census, about

7.7 percent of the census questionnaires were reported to be undeliverable

at the Oakland, California test site and 4.5 percent at the Paterson, New

Jersey test site.

In addition, the census maps appeared to be of uneven quality and

usefulness at the dress rehearsal locations. For example, local census

officials in Sacramento and South Carolina said that the census maps were

inaccurate and contained a variety of errors, such as streets that were

incorrectly placed and named. In both locations, problems with census

maps led some enumerators to use commercially available maps rather

than those supplied by the Bureau. In Menominee, because of the rural

nature of the site, maps were particularly important. Houses generally

lacked numbered street addresses, and, as a result, enumerators had to

locate them, in part, by using maps. However, Bureau officials told us that

while the quality of the Menominee maps is improving over the course of

the dress rehearsal, the maps still have problems that make it difficult for

enumerators to locate houses.

As I noted, the Bureau recognized that it needed to revise its approach to

building the census address list and to improve the quality of its map

products. However, the Bureau’s revised approach to developing its

address list is not without risk. Although elements of the revised approach

have been used and tested in earlier censuses, the Bureau has not used or

tested them together, nor in the sequence as presently designed for the

2000 Census. Furthermore, because the Bureau made the decision to

change its address list development procedures in September 1997—after

major dress rehearsal address list development efforts were already in

place—the revised approach was not used during the dress rehearsal. As a

result, it will not be known until the 2000 Census whether the Bureau’s

redesigned procedures will allow it to meet its goal of a 99 percent

complete address list. The Bureau is scheduled to begin its 2000 Census

field canvassing address list efforts in August. We will continue to monitor

the Bureau’s efforts to build the census address list.

Obtaining Public

Cooperation

Continues to Be a

Challenge for the

Census Bureau

The Bureau plans an extensive outreach and promotion campaign to boost

mail response rates and thus reduce its error prone and costly

nonresponse follow-up workload. For the 2000 Census, the Bureau

believes that its outreach and promotion program, when combined with

other initiatives such as simplified census questionnaires, should produce

a mail response rate of 66.9 percent, 12 percentage points higher than the

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55 percent response rate that the Bureau expected it would achieve

without these efforts.

The Bureau always finds that mail response rates during census tests,

including the dress rehearsal, are lower than those obtained during an

actual decennial census, when public awareness of the census is generally

much greater. Table 1 shows the anticipated dress rehearsal mail response

rates for the three sites and the rates the Bureau actually achieved.

Table 1: Anticipated and Actual Dress

Rehearsal Mail Response Rates as of

May 7, 1998 Site

Anticipated mail

response rate

Actual mail

response rate

South Carolina 55% 54.1%

Sacramento 50 53.7

Menominee 40 40.6

Note: The Bureau calculates mail response rates by dividing the total number of questionnaires

returned (either by mail or by enumerators) by the total number of questionnaires delivered.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite the fact that the Bureau generally met its response rate goals for

the dress rehearsal, significant concerns remain about the degree to which

the Bureau will be able to meets its mail response goal for 2000. By way of

comparison, the 1988 dress rehearsal for the 1990 Census generated mail

response rates that ranged from 49 percent to 56 percent for

mailout/mailback operations, and 58 percent for update/leave operations.4

The mail response rate to the 1990 Census was 65 percent—slightly less

than the 67 percent response rate that the Bureau hopes for in 2000.

More importantly, the Bureau does not currently plan to use in 2000 a key

ingredient of the response rate achieved during the dress rehearsal—a

second mailing. According to a Bureau official, concerns about public

confusion have contributed to the Bureau’s decision not to use a second

questionnaire mailing in 2000. The preliminary results of the dress

rehearsal suggest that the Bureau may need to reconsider its decision. At

both the South Carolina and Sacramento sites, the Bureau obtained

approximately a 7-percentage point “bump” in response rates by sending a

second questionnaire to all households located in mailout/mailback areas.

According to a senior Bureau offical, this 7 percentage point increase

represents real additions to the count and does not include duplicate

submissions from households that already had responded.

4

The 1988 dress rehearsal was carried out in St. Louis, east-central Missouri, and eastern Washington.

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The Bureau traditionally has found that simply raising awareness of the

census is insufficient; through its various outreach and promotion

programs, the Bureau must also motivate people to return their

questionnaires. The difficulty in doing this was demonstrated during the

1990 Census when the Bureau found that, although about 93 percent of the

public was aware of the census, the mail response rate was only

65 percent—10 percentage points lower than the mail response rate to the

1980 Census.

Today, I will highlight two of the more important components of the

Bureau’s efforts to build public awareness and cooperation through its

outreach and promotion campaign: paid advertising and partnerships and

community outreach.

Paid Advertising With regard to the Bureau’s paid advertising campaign, in October 1997,

the Bureau announced it had hired Young & Rubicam, a private advertising

agency, to market the census. The advertising campaign is based on the

theme “This is your future—don’t leave it [blank]” and stresses how

responding to the census questionnaire benefits one’s community. This

advertising effort was evident during our visits to the dress rehearsal sites,

where we often observed billboards bearing Census 2000 advertising

messages, such as “How America Knows What America Needs,” “The

Future Takes Just a Few Minutes to Complete,” and “Pave a Road With

These Tools.” In convenience stores, we observed signs that told

passers-by that “[The Census] Gives Life to New Healthcare Centers.” In

Sacramento, we observed outdoor advertising in languages appropriate for

the neighborhood. The census was also promoted through broadcast and

print media, as well as through less traditional methods such as

advertisements on shopping bags at a chain of discount stores.

About $100 million has been budgeted for the paid advertising campaign

for the 2000 Census, of which about 70 percent is earmarked for buying

advertising in print and broadcast media. According to the Bureau, for

fiscal year 1998, dress rehearsal paid advertising expenses included such

activities as

• $0.31 million for research, including pre- and post-campaign focus groups,

and telephone interviews at the dress rehearsal sites;

• $2.0 million for development, including the production of radio and

television advertisements;

• $0.82 million for South Carolina media costs;

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• $0.35 million for production and media costs for nontraditional advertising

in South Carolina;

• $0.23 million for Menominee media costs; and

• $1.12 million for Sacramento media costs.

Community Outreach The Bureau’s use of partnership and community outreach activities and, in

particular, its use of Complete Count Committees to help promote the

census are other key components of the Bureau’s outreach and promotion

campaign. According to the Bureau, Complete Count Committees are

intended to help the Bureau take the census by, among other activities,

planning and implementing a locally-based promotion effort to publicize

the importance of the 2000 Census. The committees are to consist of local

leaders, such as representatives of government, education, media,

community, religious, and businesses organizations. For the dress

rehearsal, the Bureau attempted to form committees in Sacramento and

Menominee, as well as in the City of Columbia and the 11 surrounding

counties participating in the dress rehearsal. The Bureau recommended

that the committees could, among other initiatives,

• form subcommittees to reach specific segments of the population such as

senior citizens;

• sponsor promotional events;

• obtain commitments from businesses to promote and support the census;

• provide the Bureau with testing and training space to assist in the

employment of enumerators; and

• work with local media to cover and publicize census activities.

This past spring, the Bureau sent a Complete Count Committee handbook,

in which the Bureau described its plan for implementing the Complete

Count Committee program for the 2000 Census, to the highest elected

officials in about 39,000 local and tribal governments. The handbook

suggested a structure for organizing a grassroots outreach campaign and

provided an outline and schedule of nearly five-dozen activities that

governments could undertake not only to promote the census, but also

assist the Bureau in its data collection and enumerator recruiting

responsibilities as well.

The success of the Bureau’s efforts to form partnerships with local

governments through Complete Count Committees depends, in large part,

on the Bureau having realistic and clearly communicated expectations for

what the Bureau can anticipate from the committees and, just as

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important, what the committees can expect from the Bureau. The Bureau

expects that the committees will secure their own funding and will rely on

the Bureau for only a very limited amount of direct assistance. For

example, at the dress rehearsal site in South Carolina, the Bureau hired

two partnership specialists to help mobilize local groups. These specialists

had to distribute their time and energy among the City of Columbia and

the 11 surrounding counties included in the dress rehearsal—a workload

that is consistent with what will be expected in 2000 when the Bureau

plans to have 320 partnership specialists in place across the nation.

Our work at the dress rehearsal sites suggests that the effectiveness of the

partnership effort was undermined by an apparent mismatch between the

Bureau’s expectations of the committees and what the committees could

realistically accomplish. In both South Carolina and Menominee, a

message we consistently heard from local officials associated with the

committees was that they lacked the human and financial resources to

promote the census, communication and guidance from the Bureau were

insufficient, and Bureau assistance was limited. As a result, Complete

Count Committees in some South Carolina counties were never formed,

while others became inactive and some local officials expressed confusion

and frustration over what was expected.

Local outreach and promotion appeared to go more smoothly in

Sacramento. This was likely due in part to the fact that there was only one

Bureau partnership specialist in Sacramento assisting only one Complete

Count Committee for Sacramento. However, as I have noted, for the 2000

Census, workloads for the Bureau partnership specialists closer to those I

have described for South Carolina are more likely be the norm.

Overall, therefore, the dress rehearsal experience suggests that the Bureau

needs to ensure that it has realistic expectations about the contributions

that Complete Count Committees will be able to make in promoting the

census, building the response rate, and assisting the Bureau.

The Dress Rehearsal

Has Not Encountered

Significant Staffing

Problems to Date

Recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining a workforce to carry out the 2000

Census is clearly one of the government’s great human resource

challenges. The Bureau estimates that, under its current design, it will

need to fill about 295,000 office and field positions to carry out various

census-taking activities during the 2000 Census. To fill this many positions,

the Bureau estimates, based on past experience, that it will need to recruit

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as many as 2.6 million applicants, because for a variety of reasons, most

applicants never make it through the employment process.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding the Bureau’s ability to staff the 2000

Census, staffing the dress rehearsal appears to have gone better than

expected thus far. As shown in table 2, one measure of the success of the

Bureau’s staffing efforts, applicants’ acceptance of job offers for

nonresponse follow-up (where the demand for employees is greatest), far

exceeded the Bureau’s expectations.

Table 2: Job Offer Acceptance Rate for

Nonresponse Follow-Up Operations

Site

Anticipated

acceptance rate

Actual acceptance

rate

South Carolina 50% 90%

Sacramento 50 78

Menominee 50 71

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Moreover, managers of the local Census Bureau offices at the dress

rehearsal sites we spoke to said that the quality of the newly hired

employees’ work was typically good. According to Bureau data, at all three

dress rehearsal sites, enumerator productivity came very close to the

Bureau’s goal of 1.5 nonresponse follow-up cases completed per hour and

enumerator turnover appears to have been lower than expected.

The Bureau attributes its apparently successful dress rehearsal staffing

efforts to several factors, including a competitive pay plan and aggressive

recruitment. Key features of the Bureau’s pay plan include locality-based

wages and bonuses for exceeding production targets. In addition, when

the Bureau recognized that it was having difficulty recruiting a large

enough pool of qualified applicants to fill its needs for nonresponse

follow-up and later census operations in South Carolina, the Bureau raised

enumerator pay rates from $9.50 per hour to $10.50 per hour effective

April 3, 1998. Enumerator pay was $12.50 per hour in Sacramento and

$11.25 per hour in Menominee.

The Bureau used a wide variety of methods to recruit applicants. Among

these were the mass mailing of recruiting literature to residents, posters,

flyers, and newspaper advertisements and articles. During our visits to the

dress rehearsal sites, we frequently observed recruiting notices in such

public locations as post offices, local government office buildings, and

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public libraries. In fact, recruiting literature appeared to be more prevalent

than materials that promoted the census itself.

Questions Remain

About the Quality of

Data Processing and

the Use of Technology

Translating data from completed census forms into a useable format

represents another challenge for the Bureau. The Bureau plans to have

data capture centers process a total of about 1 billion pages of census

questionnaires in 99 work days beginning in March 2000. The Bureau plans

to take advantage of commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software

through its contractor Lockheed Martin, rather than rely on in-house

products. During the dress rehearsal, the Bureau is testing the accuracy of

the data input by the new scanning equipment and software designed to

perform this operation. Bureau officials reported that this operation met

all high-priority processing deadlines, despite experiencing system bugs

that will need to be addressed before 2000.

The purpose of the dress rehearsal was to test and debug the system in an

operational environment in advance of Census 2000. However, additional

load testing is still necessary because the system could not be run during

the rehearsal at performance levels that will be needed in 2000. During the

dress rehearsal, the scanning equipment used to electronically record

responses off census forms experienced system crashes due to flaws in

the software. To deal with this problem, the Bureau was forced to cut back

the number of scanners in operation at any one time. According to Bureau

officials, the software subcontractor, is resolving this and other problems

through intensive testing, and will have a new version of its software

available for further testing in late August.

According to Bureau officials, another problem related to scanning is the

frequency at which the scanners needed to be cleaned of accumulated

dust. Initially, the Bureau had planned to clean the machines every 2

hours. However, dust accumulated faster than expected, which

necessitated a 5-minute cleaning after each 15 minutes of use. Bureau

officials said that poor paper quality appears to be one factor that led to

the accumulation of dust. The Bureau and the Government Printing Office

are studying the problem.

To date, test results of the accuracy of scanned data during the dress

rehearsal are not available. The Bureau plans to continue to test its data

capture system using census-like workloads in late August and complete

its final evaluation later this year. The Bureau plans to run actual dress

rehearsal forms through the system—as well as a database of

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computer-generated images—to test the performance of its scanning

equipment. Bureau officials believe that sufficient time remains to

complete more testing, incorporate lessons learned from the dress

rehearsal, and make technology enhancements before Census 2000.

Critical Operations

Remain to Be

Completed but Field

Operations to Date

Finished on Schedule

Of the Bureau’s numerous field operations, two of the largest and most

logistically challenging under the Bureau’s current design are nonresponse

follow-up and a procedure called Integrated Coverage Measurement

(ICM), a survey in which residents in a sample of blocks are interviewed.

ICM and enumeration data are used in dual system estimation to adjust for

coverage errors in the enumeration.

As currently planned, the Bureau is to reduce its nonresponse follow-up

workload for the 2000 Census by sampling nonresponding households. By

using a sample-based nonresponse follow-up, the Bureau would reduce

the time necessary to complete this activity. This in turn would expedite

the beginning of ICM data collection, improving the Bureau’s ability to

meet the target date for delivery of census data at the end of December. In

addition, compressing the nonresponse follow-up data collection period

could shorten the average time between census day and visits to

households, thereby reducing the likelihood of enumeration errors caused

by households that move between census day and nonresponse follow-up.

The Bureau plans to conduct a nationwide ICM. However, as noted earlier,

for the dress rehearsal, the Bureau only sampled for nonresponse and is

conducting the ICM in Sacramento. In South Carolina, the Bureau

procedures are to follow up on all nonresponding households and do a

coverage evaluation operation, just as it did nationally in the 1990 Census.

At the Menominee site, the Bureau is to follow up on all nonresponding

households and additionally, is using the ICM.

To preserve the integrity of the adjustment process, enumeration and ICM

operations must be kept independent of one another. If ICM respondents

became aware of their selection for the ICM, this could alter their

responses to, or willingness to participate in, the enumeration. To the

extent that this occurred, it could bias the data and result in a less

accurate measure of any coverage errors in the enumeration. In an attempt

to maintain their necessary independence, nonresponse follow-up and ICM

activities are to be completed according to a tight schedule, with ICM

activities commencing only after nonresponse follow-up has been

completed. During the dress rehearsal, nonresponse follow-up was

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completed on time at the Sacramento and Menominee sites, and about a

week ahead of schedule in South Carolina. We observed that ICM

operations began as scheduled in Sacramento. Major ICM field operations

are scheduled to last until late August 1998.

The Bureau’s procedures called for it to take additional steps to prevent

contamination of the ICM data. According to Bureau officials, these

included efforts to separate the management and implementation of the

ICM operation from the nonresponse follow-up operation. For example,

the ICM operation was administered entirely by the Bureau’s Seattle

Regional Office rather than the local census office in Sacramento.

Additionally, nonresponse follow-up enumerators were not told which

blocks were included in the ICM, and ICM enumerators were told that they

could not tell anyone which blocks had been assigned to them.

The quality of the dress rehearsal data, as measured by the extent to which

it is complete and accurate, is still to be determined. With the ICM still in

progress, the full results of the ICM will not be known for several months.

Moreover, a key question for which information is not yet available is the

degree to which the Bureau had to rely on proxy responses from

neighbors, letter carriers, and others to complete its nonresponse

workload in a timely manner. As part of our ongoing work, we will review

the quality of the data collected during the ICM and nonresponse follow-up

operations, the Bureau’s procedures for maintaining the independence of

enumeration and ICM data, and, more generally, the extent to which the

Bureau was able to implement its field operations as planned.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, within the constraints and limitations imposed

by the dress rehearsal setting, the Bureau to date has shown a general

ability to implement the dress rehearsal at the three sites according to its

operational timetable and plan. The Bureau has also shown an ability to

adapt to changing requirements as demonstrated by such actions as

redesigning its address list development procedures to produce a more

accurate and complete list and by increasing wage rates in South Carolina

to improve recruiting.

However, the dress rehearsal also emphasized the formidable challenges

to implementing a successful census that confront the Bureau. For

example, mail response rates remain problematic and local partnerships

have had limited success. Moreover, key dress rehearsal operations

remain to be completed and, as noted earlier, the fundamental indicators

of a successful census—the quality of the data, including the accuracy of

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the population count and the extent to which proxy data are used—are not

yet available.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased

to answer any questions you or Members of the Committee may have.

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