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39–024 PDF 2008

2010 CENSUS: IMPROVING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

PARTICIPATION IN LUCA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 26, 2007

Serial No. 110–34

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

(

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

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

BILL SALI, Idaho

TONY HAYWOOD, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 26, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Hudson, Heather, vice president, National Conference of Black Mayors

and mayor, Greenville, MS; Keith Hite, president, National Association

of Towns and Townships and executive director, Pennsylvania State

Association of Township Supervisors; and Robert Coats, Governor’s census liaison, Office of State Budget Management, State of North Carolina ................................................................................................................. 53

Coats, Robert ............................................................................................. 64

Hite, Keith ................................................................................................. 57

Hudson, Heather ....................................................................................... 53

Kincannon, Charles Louis, Director, U.S. Census Bureau; and Mathew

J. Scireˆ, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability

Office .............................................................................................................. 5

Kincannon, Charles Louis ........................................................................ 5

Scireˆ, Mathew J. ........................................................................................ 18

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

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

Missouri:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Prepared statements of Governor Blanco, Ms. Heim, and Mr.

Bollinger ................................................................................................. 42

Coats, Robert, Governor’s census liaison, Office of State Budget Management, State of North Carolina, prepared statement of .............................. 67

Hite, Keith, president, National Association of Towns and Townships

and executive director, Pennsylvania State Association of Township

Supervisors, prepared statement of ............................................................. 60

Hudson, Heather, vice president, National Conference of Black Mayors

and mayor, Greenville, MS, prepared statement of ................................... 55

Kincannon, Charles Louis, Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 8

Scireˆ, Mathew J., Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........................................................... 20

Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 15

(1)

2010 CENSUS: IMPROVING LOCAL

GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATION IN LUCA

TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2007

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

NATIONAL ARCHIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

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

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

Present: Representatives Clay and Tierney.

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

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

staff assistant; Nick Ballen, intern; Jay O’Callaghan, minority professional staff member; John Cuaderes, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; and Benjamin Chance, minority clerk.

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

National Archives of the Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform will come to order.

Today’s hearing will examine issues relating to the implementation of the Local Update of Census Addresses [LUCA], the program

for the 2010 census.

Without objection, the Chair and ranking minority member will

have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening

statements by any other Member who seeks recognition.

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

the record.

I will begin by welcoming everyone to the committee and to today’s hearing on improving local government participation in the

Local Update of Census Addresses [LUCA] program.

This is the second in a series of oversight hearings examining the

Census Bureau’s preparations for the 2010 census. It is critical

that the Bureau has the information it needs to locate and count

all individuals in the United States on census day, April 1, 2010.

The decennial census is the single most important survey conducted by our Government, and the only one expressly required by

the Constitution. It determines how congressional seats are apportioned, and it directly impacts how over $200 billion in Federal

funding is distributed to State, local, and tribal governments each

year.

The census counts people where they reside on census day. Each

individual’s location is determined not by name, telephone number,

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or other personally identifiable information, but by their address;

therefore, an accurate enumeration of the population requires the

Bureau to have current and complete address lists and maps. This

is the sole purpose of the LUCA program, which involves address

information sharing among local and tribal governments, the U.S.

Postal Service, and the Census Bureau.

Authorized by the Census Address List Improvement Act of 1994,

LUCA was first implemented for the last decennial census for the

2000 census. For the 2000 census, 53 percent of the 39,051 local

entities that were eligible to participate chose not to do so. Meanwhile, 25 percent submitted at least one address correction or challenged at least one block. As a result, millions of homes were not

included on the census address list, were improperly deleted, or

were incorrectly located on census maps. This contributed to what

is commonly known as the under-count, which historically has had

a disproportionate impact on racial or ethnic minority communities.

Since 2000, the Bureau has made adjustments aimed at increasing participation and decreasing the under-count. Today we will

hear about those changes, as well as GAO’s recent evaluation of

LUCA implementation efforts for the 2010 census.

Another important issue is to examine why the Bureau determined not to employ so-called update enumeration in the 2008

dress rehearsal.

In our previous hearing, Dr. Joe Salvo, director of the Population

Division in New York City endorsed using this methodology to ensure an accurate count of individuals who reside in non-standard,

multi-family dwellings where apartment numbers are either confusing or absent. Testing it prior to conducting the 2010 census

could improve its effectiveness and save costs in the long run, but

budget limitations appear to have hindered its use during the dress

rehearsal.

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, who will tell us

how LUCA and other tools can help us meet the challenge of enumerating the population accurately by census day in 2010.

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

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Mr. CLAY. On our first panel we will hear from the Honorable

Charles Louis Kincannon, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Welcome again to the committee.

We will also hear from Mr. Mathew J. Scireˆ, Director of Strategic

Issues at GAO.

Thank you for being here before this subcommittee.

It is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Dr. Kincannon, before you begin, let me note that this is your

first appearance before the subcommittee since the President nominated Dr. Steven Murdock to succeed you. When you announced

your retirement last year, you stated that you would stay on until

your replacement was confirmed. That was an honorable and selfless act, and it was characteristic of the leadership you have demonstrated. I believe this will not be your last appearance before the

subcommittee, but I want to take this opportunity to thank you for

your distinguished service to our Nation, and also say that I sincerely hope your successor will be as committed as you have been

to the Bureau and its very important mission.

That said, you will have 5 minutes to make an opening statement. Your complete written testimony will be included in the

hearing record. The yellow light will indicate you have 1 minute remaining and the red light will indicate your time has expired.

Mr. Kincannon, you may proceed.

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES LOUIS KINCANNON, DIRECTOR,

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; AND MATHEW J. SCIREˆ , DIRECTOR,

STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

OFFICE

STATEMENT OF CHARLES LOUIS KINCANNON

Mr. KINCANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the LUCA program before the committee

today.

LUCA plays a critical role in our efforts to ensure the accuracy

and success of the 2010 census. I am proud to report that this important and earliest of 2010 census activities is officially underway

and proceeding according to plans and schedule.

The LUCA law, which some of the members of this subcommittee

sponsored, authorizes the Census Bureau to provide designated officials of tribal, State, and local governments with access to confidential census address and mapping information.

The first LUCA review program was conducted for the 2000 census, and we learned valuable lessons that are the foundation for

our plans for the 2010 census. For 2010 we are better organized,

by far. By conducting advanced and earlier outreach, as well as creating more opportunities for local governments to participate, we

hope to achieve our goal: that is, to ensure the LUCA program is

more inclusive for 2010, meaning that more governments can effectively participate.

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Other plan enhancements also reflect this goal. One of the notable changes from census 2000 is that we are inviting States to participate directly. We also intend to provide a longer review cycle.

For the 2010 census, governments will have 120 days to review the

materials, rather than 90 days in 2000. This should allow them to

plan and review their address lists thoroughly and effectively.

We are also conducting the address canvassing operation after

LUCA. During this operation, census listers will verify or update

the addresses they see against the address information on the Census Bureau’s address list and maps. This will include all of the address additions given to us by local governments. Address canvassing is especially important in rapidly changing areas and underscores the importance of LUCA and local address sources for updating in places such as the Gulf Coast areas that were damaged by

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

We hope our earlier and ongoing outreach efforts increase participation. We have already sent advance notification letters earlier

this year to every tribal, State, and local government. We have also

conducted nearly 1,000 pre-invitation promotional workshops covering approximately 10,000 governmental units. In August we will

begin sending the actual invitation letters, providing registration

materials and other information materials to help governments in

deciding how to participate.

Unlike the 2000 census, we are offering three options to participate, including a non-confidential review of the summary census

block counts and local address list submission. Under option one,

government participants will be asked to incorporate changes for

the city style addresses. Participants who select this option, as well

as option two, are required to sign the confidentiality agreement

and must have the means to secure the materials that are protected by Title 13.

In option two, participating governments will be able to review

our address list materials and submit their city style address lists

for the Census Bureau to use, without making changes to our materials. This was developed for those government participants who

may not have the time or resources to update the 2010 census

LUCA address list.

Option three is a non-confidential opportunity for governments to

review only the 2010 census LUCA address count list, and they can

submit their own local address list to the Census Bureau for use.

This option is intended for those governments who do not have the

time or resources to conduct the address list review process or who

cannot meet the Title 13 security requirements.

We are asking every tribal, State, and local government to respond as quickly as possible to the invitations. We can accept registrations through the end of December this year. We must begin

processing the submissions and preparing for address canvassing,

the first major field operation for the decennial census, which begins early in 2009. We intend to provide LUCA feedback to each

participating government on a flow basis, beginning in August

through October 2009, following the address canvassing operation.

Our primary goal for LUCA is to ensure that every tribal, State,

and local government is given an opportunity to participate according to their needs and resources. We are working with our partners

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to promote the LUCA program. We also request your support and

leadership in promoting the LUCA participation. LUCA plays a

critical role in ensuring the accuracy and completeness of the 2010

census. Local government participation can make the census more

successful.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this opportunity, and would be

pleased to answer any questions.

I am beyond my 5 minutes, but I do want to say I did appreciate

and enjoy every courtesy extended to me by you, by Chairman

Turner, by Chairman Putnam before him, in making our preparations better understood and reinforced for the census.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kincannon follows:]

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

Before we go to Mr. Scireˆ, I wanted to submit for the record the

opening statement of our ranking member, Michael Turner of Ohio.

It will be part of the subcommittee record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Michael R. Turner follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Mr. Scireˆ, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MATHEW J. SCIREˆ

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

here today to discuss the Census Bureau’s LUCA program.

My remarks are based on a study we concluded this month in

which we assessed the Bureau’s dress rehearsal for LUCA. In that

report we made a number of recommendations to improve the program, and the Bureau has agreed with those recommendations.

A complete and accurate address list is the cornerstone of a successful census. The Bureau takes a number of steps to ensure an

accurate address list. One of those is enlisting the help of State and

local governments in verifying address and map information for

housing units located in their communities.

Almost 8 years ago we testified that the LUCA program had

mixed results. We noted the burden that the program placed upon

participating governments. For example, over two-thirds of participants we surveyed at the time told us that the LUCA workload

was much or somewhat more than they had expected. Also, many

local governments participating in LUCA in 1998 expressed concern with having sufficient resources to review the material.

Today I can report that the Bureau has taken several steps to

address prior concerns about burden. Nonetheless, there is more

the Bureau can do to help communities successfully participate in

the program.

Let me start by recognizing some of the improvements to the

LUCA program. First, to reduce burden the Bureau combined previously separate LUCA efforts that involved city style and non-city

style addresses into a single operation. Also, the Bureau increased

the time that localities have to provide information, now 120 days

rather than 90. The Bureau also provided advanced notice to eligible communities, sending letters earlier this year to advise them

about the upcoming program.

The Bureau also has had a few mis-steps. It developed software

that it hopes will facilitate participants’ reviews, but the software,

called the MAF/TIGER Partnership Software, has had only limited

testing with potential users. We believe that there is more the Bureau can do to understand the usability of the software, including

testing with additional potential users.

Similarly, the Bureau developed computer-based training to

teach participants how to complete LUCA material; however, the

Bureau has not tested this training tool with potential LUCA participants at the time of our review. We recommended that the Bureau do additional testing of the software, and it is attempting to

do so.

Finally, we found in our survey participants in a dress rehearsal

that over one-third had difficulty converting Bureau-provided files

into formats that they use. We recommend that the Bureau do

more to provide instruction for participants on how to make this

file conversion. The Bureau has agreed to do so.

To better understand the results of the LUCA program, the National Research Council and others recommend that the Bureau do

more to assess the impact of the program; for example, recommending the Bureau assess the contribution of the program to housing

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unit and population counts and assess the program’s cost and benefits.

We believe there is more the Bureau can do to understand the

impact the LUCA program has on correctly identifying housing

units, as well as its contribution toward population counts. Such

analysis would help the Bureau judge the success of the program

and to improve future operations.

To fully assess the contributions of the LUCA program, we recommended that the Bureau collect additional data that would permit it to identify eligible localities that agreed to participate in the

program but did not submit updated material. Without this information, the Bureau cannot determine whether these communities

had found that they had no changes to submit or that they simply

chose not to reply.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, we believe the Bureau could do

more to optimize the contributions made by LUCA participants by

providing them the best available tools for doing the job. Likewise,

there is more that the Bureau could do to assess the outcome of

the LUCA program. We made specific recommendations in these

areas, and the Bureau has promised to take action.

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

that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scireˆ follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for that testimony, Mr. Scireˆ. I will start off by asking Director Kincannon about the Bureau’s

report that there were 39,051 eligible entities for the 2000 LUCA

program. Of that number, 20,718 chose not to participate. However, the Bureau informed GAO that it expects the rate of participation to increase to 60 percent for the 2010.

What steps are you taking to achieve a higher rate of local government participation in LUCA, Mr. Director? How do we get this

right? How do we get it on the right track in preparation for 2010?

Mr. KINCANNON. Mr. Chairman, the program that we had in

2000 was somewhat late in preparation. It was unnecessarily complex, as Mr. Scireˆ pointed out, in multiple parts that made sense

in the mind of a census geographer but were not familiar to mayors

and local officials. That made it more difficult. We did not provide

software that enabled them to easily convert their records of addresses to usable format for the Census Bureau.

And we have tried to address that. I don’t know that we will

have a perfect situation, but I am confident we will have a much

better LUCA for 2010 than we did now. We have begun earlier. We

began notification to eligible governments, all 39,000 of them, in

January and February of this year, alerting them to the fact that

LUCA would be approaching and they needed to take certain steps

and what we were going to be doing.

We have, in the interim, held a number of informational and promotional meetings, almost 1,000 of them, and more than 10,000

governments have participated. Every governing unit has been contacted about these meetings. There has been one or more in every

State. So this has helped raise the consciousness and begin the

early preparation locally, which is necessary to make it successful.

We have prepared software that will relate to the commonly used

kinds of address and geographic information system software used

in municipal and county and even State governments to help localities take the records they already have and convert them in a

straightforward way to records we can use in our program.

We will make the software available. We will provide instructions readily, through a help desk, through Web-based information,

and even in printed form if that is the most convenient way for localities to do it.

We will in August begin accepting registrations from local governments who are engaging to undertake LUCA. I think we have

a broader understanding in local governments now as a result of

the 2000 exercise, and certainly have the informational and promotional work done so far that participation in LUCA is one of the

most effective ways that State and local government and tribal government can improve census results in their area.

You rightly said in your opening remarks that our census really

is built on the back of addresses, and if you have the right address

list we will have better coverage in the census. You can’t count people if you miss where they live, so this is an important contribution

that local and State governments can make in improving their census.

Then we will collect the information, send our records to the participating States. They will incorporate their corrections and suggestions and we return them to them. We will review that, incorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jan 14, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\39024.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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porate all of the added addresses that they suggest are there into

the data base to be used by our address canvassing listers.

The addresses will not be separately identified, so a census lister

is out trying to see where are the housing units around this block

will not be able to tell one that we got from the Post Office from

one that we got from the mayor’s office or the State. They will just

go and find, if they can identify where that housing unit is. If they

can, then it is in for the census. If they can’t, then we feed that

information back to the locality.

If the locality disagrees with that determination, there is an appeal process which the law sets up. It is organized and supervised

by the Office of Management and Budget, with experts that they

hire particularly for that purpose, and then they decide whether we

goofed or the locality did not have good evidence, and we abide by

what they said. If they say go look again, we go look again.

So I think those steps are likely to make for a much better LUCA

process, and therefore a better census in 2010.

Mr. CLAY. You know, Mr. Director, LUCA has been authorized

for over 10 years now, which indicates to me that since you had

your first trial of it in the 2000 census, that you would have seen

some of the flaws and address those flaws, and really, just listening

to your response, requires a true lateral relationship between local

governments, not a one-sided or top-down approach from the Census Bureau’s point. And it requires a true relationship. I hope that

has developed over the past decade within your culture in the Bureau, where people actually realize, look, we can’t do this alone,

and that the Bureau and the people that work for the Census Bureau understand that.

I notice that GAO found that local elected officials are still having file conversion problems, and those problems are similar to

what they experienced in 2000, which tells me there probably

needs to be better communication between the Bureau, their employees, and local government.

Has there been an attempt or effort——

Mr. KINCANNON. We have not yet sent to local governments the

files that they will have to use to compare with their own and incorporate their own data in those files. We agree with the GAO’s

finding that we have not tested that yet sufficiently, and we are

going to followup and do a better job of getting that testing done

with actual governments. Some governments will still find flaws, I

am sure, but we are so much closer to achieving what I think is

a good and transparent process.

We certainly cannot with a straight face say that the mayor or

the town planner or the county engineer on the ground there does

not know more about whether a housing unit exists than we do

miles away in Washington. So if they say that 121 Maple Street

is a housing unit, we are going to go to 121 Maple Street and see

if we can find it.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Let me ask you about this. The Bureau did not

test the MAF/TIGER Partnership Software, or the CTP software

during the LUCA dress rehearsal; however, the Bureau readily accepted GAO’s recommendation that it should conduct more testing.

Please explain the initial decision not to test the software, and

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what are your plans for ensuring operability, reliability, and ease

of use?

Mr. KINCANNON. The contract for the software was not let until

last summer, and it did not allow time to get it completed in time

for use in the dress rehearsal. I am not sure of all the steps that

led to that, but at any rate it was not for lateness on the part of

the contractor. If it is a flaw in tardiness, it is our flaw.

I cannot answer today what our plans are for the testing. Certainly we have sought local advice from the county where we do

our business, Prince George’s County, in seeing how they react to

this software, and we will have to do some other steps like that in

various parts of the country and certainly with different sizes of

local governments, because Prince George’s County is a large,

wealthy, and sophisticated unit of government, and there are going

to be smaller towns and less-populated counties that may not have

their aptitude to do that. We need to do that sort of testing.

Mr. CLAY. How quickly will your turn-around be when you find

incompatibility with ‘‘local governments?’’

Mr. KINCANNON. Well, we will try to make sure that they are understanding properly how to use the software as it is developed, or

we will have to make amendments in that software if we discover

errors or complexities that are unnecessary.

I don’t know the turn-around time for that. We will get you an

answer for the record so that you have something to hold us accountable for.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Specifically, could you also provide us with a contingency plan to address potential operating problems that might

have been detected if the software had been used?

Mr. KINCANNON. Yes, sir, we will.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for that.

Let me move to Mr. Scireˆ.

In written testimony submitted by David Ballinger, principal GIS

analyst for San Joaquin County, CA, one of the LUCA dress rehearsal sites, stated that the county had difficulty performing block

level counts where census blocks did not correspond with physical

blocks. In one particular case the Census Bureau’s list had a single

large street block of condominiums listed as three separate census

blocks. Did GAO witness similar experiences during your observation of the dress rehearsal?

Mr. SCIREˆ. I can’t say that we have witnessed that specific phenomenon during the dress rehearsal for LUCA, so no.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Can you tell us approximately how much additional work is required to correct any problems like that?

Mr. SCIREˆ. No. We don’t have that measurement.

Mr. CLAY. Do you have any recommendations for the Bureau?

Mr. SCIREˆ. Yes, we do have recommendations for the Bureau. If

I could go back to some of the earlier questions, you were asking

about the partnership rate and what the likelihood is for the future. I think what is important is to look at not just partnership

rate—that is one measure of success—but also to look at how well

the individual localities are able to work with the Bureau on providing information, so is it a successful partnership, if you will. So

there we make recommendations to improve the tools that the Bureau is providing to localities, including the software that you menVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jan 14, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\39024.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tioned, the MAF/TIGER Partnership Software, and the computerbased training.

I also want to point out that the file conversion that we were

talking about earlier really is not the MAF/TIGER Partnership

Software. This is for localities that chose not to use MAF/TIGER

Partnership Software. They were having difficulties converting Bureau-provided files into formats that they use, such as Access, for

example. There we made recommendations for the Bureau to provide additional guidance or instruction that they might find on the

Bureau Web site or otherwise.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Let me ask you, based on your work during the

dress rehearsal, how would you describe the New Orleans’ officials’

understanding of LUCA requirements? Are they consistent with

the Bureau’s?

Mr. SCIREˆ. Yes. I think that there is consistent understanding of

what is required. We also surveyed localities and asked them about

the guidance that the Bureau provided, and generally we received

favorable responses that the guidance was useful and understandable. We also spoke with individual localities. I think that generally they had understood what the requirements of the LUCA

program were. There was some concern about whether or not they

would have sufficient resources or time to participate, given, especially in the Gulf Coast area, their concern and focus on rebuilding.

Mr. CLAY. In written testimony submitted by Mary Heim, chief

of the demographic research unit for California’s Department of Finance, it is stated that local officials found discrepancies between

the TIGER and LUCA files.

Mr. SCIREˆ. OK.

Mr. CLAY. After contacting the Seattle Regional Office for technical assistance to no avail, county officials learned from ERSI

that, in order to use the LUCA files for GO coding, an additional

step was necessary to convert the file. GAO notes in its report that

local officials did not receive instruction on converting files.

You note that challenges with the file conversion remain. Is the

case cited by Ms. Heim an example——

Mr. SCIREˆ. Yes.

Mr. CLAY [continuing]. Of the concern expressed by local officials

that you spoke with?

Mr. SCIREˆ. Yes, that is it exactly. We surveyed all of the participants in the LUCA program, and we asked them to what extent

did they experience problems with file conversion. Nine of them

told us that they had problems to a very great or great extent, another five said to a moderate extent. There were only 7 out of the

30 that said they had no problem with file conversion. So we looked

at file conversion as being a major difficulty for localities.

If the MTPS doesn’t work, these localities will have to rely on file

conversion even more. Now, the Bureau doesn’t know how many localities will be using MTPS. That was not something that was tested as part of the dress rehearsal, so you wouldn’t be able through

that to get an understanding of the extent to which the localities

that did participate would have chosen MTPS over converting Bureau-provided files.

So we do think it is an important problem to focus on, and the

Bureau has agreed to do additional guidance and so forth. The

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more that they can do with that, the better for localities, that they

have the best tools for doing their job.

Mr. CLAY. And those are your recommendations to the

Bureau——

Mr. SCIREˆ. That is right. Yes.

Mr. CLAY [continuing]. On how to lessen the number of problems?

Mr. SCIREˆ. We are looking at successful participation, not just

participation.

Mr. CLAY. Right.

Mr. SCIREˆ. And for successful participation, it is incumbent on

the Bureau to provide the best tools that it can. To its credit, it

worked to develop this software. It did not plan for the testing of

the software, and it is through that sort of testing that you are

going to find the bugs that will appear in any sort of software. It

is through that kind of testing that you are going to get the truest

measure of how well the software will work with real, live users.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you.

Let me go back to Director Kincannon. How about this case

where they go to the Seattle Regional Office looking for some technical assistance and not being able to get satisfactory assistance?

Have you looked at, not at this case, but just similar problems that

have arisen? And do you know how to address it?

Mr. KINCANNON. No. I wasn’t aware of this instance. I will look

into it and see what the problem was. Normally, we expect the geographic staff in our regional offices to followup, and particularly at

this stage of things to be able to offer technical assistance to a

State-level office.

I do know that a number of large jurisdictions use ESRI geographic information system software. ESRI was a company that bid

on the development of the software for LUCA and MAF/TIGER.

They did not win that bid. Another company won that bid. But because they have a large market, they have told us that they are

moving ahead with preparation of software that will work with

their data base and provide us the information that is usable in our

form, and we will be liaising and testing with them what they provide there, so that will help in the case of California perhaps better

than our retrofitting of what they have to what we need.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Director, that is a peculiar relationship, wouldn’t

you say? A company that did not win the bid is providing——

Mr. KINCANNON. They also have, Mr. Chairman, an interest in

providing services to their large customer data base and not getting

them accustomed to some other kind of software, so these things

work to be mutually supportive, perhaps.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that.

Mr. KINCANNON. Yes, sir. We have agreed with these recommendations of the GAO and are going to be following up and implementing them.

Mr. CLAY. Let me shift back to Louisiana. The Census Bureau

was told by local officials in New Orleans that the current LUCA

program is adequate for the area and that no special adjustments

were needed to accommodate the area. However, there is some concern that local officials might have an understanding of the LUCA

requirements that differs from that of the Bureau.

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What is the Bureau doing to ensure that local officials in hurricane-affected areas have an accurate understanding of the requirements for LUCA participants? And how will the Bureau address

the fact that many local governments in the hurricane affected

area of the Gulf Coast region are still in the process of reconstruction, and restoration, might not have the resources to participate

in LUCA?

Mr. KINCANNON. I am not sure we can address the resource question for local governments in this regard. I understand that they

have many claims on their resources. We have conducted discussions with State-level officials in the affected areas about the plans

for how we are going to carry out LUCA, and they have not suggested, nor have local officials we have talked to, any particular

change in the procedures. We do, after all, send people out in the

address canvas to look at every block and every area and every address that is made known to us, whether it is made known to us

by the local government or from the postal records or our own

records, and see if that is still there, or if some new dwelling place

has been placed there, or if it is a FEMA trailer. So there is a fairly

thorough re-evaluation on the ground of those addresses in the canvassing operation.

We also have planned for additional meetings with local area officials as we approach LUCA and give them priority and attention

so that we can become aware of any misunderstandings or of any

needs that we may be able to address.

Mr. CLAY. I had invited the Governor of Louisiana here, but they

are finishing up their legislative session so she could not, but she

sent a letter. She really wanted to stress today the importance of

the Bureau being sensitized to the fact that you have a situation

along the Gulf Coast region, and particularly Louisiana, where

some people have come back to the region since. A lot of them don’t

live in the properties that they occupied before the hurricane, but

they are there, and they may be living with relatives, friends. They

may be stacked up in homes or apartments. She just wanted to be

sure that the Bureau was aware of it and, where needed, to also

put the right focus and attention on those areas, and if the resources are needed, make a sacrifice to actually assist those areas

so that we can get a true picture of what is going on in those areas.

Mr. KINCANNON. Well, we have some familiarity with the area.

Following the hurricanes, several dozens of census employees volunteered to help—not to do things for the data base, but to do

things for FEMA and for other aid givers and servers there. So we

have some first-hand knowledge of the level of destruction and dislocation.

We are aware of the problem of people removed from their customary dwelling place and stacked up or doubled up with family

or relatives living in FEMA trailers and so on. We adapted our

methods of asking questions in the American community survey, as

well as in the current population survey, to reflect this and make

sure that we tried to count those other people.

The census questionnaire, itself, provides for adding additional

people if there are other families living doubled up with you.

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We are ultimately dependent on people in the household to report and to say, Well, we need extra forms, extra questionnaires,

but there is a procedure that should address that.

We do continue to conduct the American community survey in all

of those areas every month, so that gives us an on-the-ground familiarity with conditions and evolving and changing conditions.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

The Census Bureau reported that 1.6 million vacant housing

units were misclassified as occupied, and 1.4 million housing units

not included in the 2000 census. These numbers would have been

higher had the Bureau not used update/enumerate. According to

the Bureau’s update/enumerate final report, the methodology contributed to the success of the 2000 census by improving address

lists and identifying areas suited for enumeration. By using the

process, the Bureau was able to determine that approximately

950,000 of the over 1.1 million update/enumerate addresses were

either occupied or vacant housing units; however, the Bureau decided against using update/enumerate for the 2008 dress rehearsal.

Why was the decision made not to use update/enumerate in the

2008 dress rehearsal? Was it due to funding constraints or some

other factor or factors? And how much additional funding would be

needed if funding was the issue?

Mr. KINCANNON. Funding was not the issue. We did not need to

test update/enumerate because it is a procedure that we have used

in past censuses and know how to use it. The dress rehearsal areas

were chosen to study other particular kinds of problems—housing

on military bases and so on—so those were the key things that

drove us to pick those areas and not the need to test update/enumerate. We know how to do update/enumerate.

The issue that has been raised by Joe Salvo about using update/

enumerate in dense urban areas is a legitimate one. The problem

we need to deal with there is do we have the ability to identify in

advance the areas where we could use that procedure. If we can

identify those in advance and plan to use that process and not the

Post Office in defined areas, then we know how to carry out the

process.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Mr. Scireˆ, address canvassers will use hand-held computers

equipped with a global positioning system to make adjustments to

their address lists. At the April 24th hearing, Michael Murray of

Harris Corp., the manufacturer of the hand-held computing devices, informed the subcommittee that the machines were working

properly and were expected to do so during the dress rehearsal. Did

you observe any problems with the hand-held computers during the

dress rehearsals? If so, how were the problems handled?

Mr. SCIREˆ. We are in the midst of the work, as you know, and

I can report that there are some things that we observed that raise

questions for us about the operation of the hand-held computers.

This is very preliminary observations that we have at this point.

And we also could see some changes over the course of the dress

rehearsal, as well. So at the beginning of the dress rehearsal we

were observing some issues with transmission times, and those, the

Harris Corp. explains, were corrected through software upgrades.

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I can’t confirm that is the case or not, but that is something that

we are looking into.

More recently, you know, we wanted to go back to the dress rehearsal locations after they had had a few weeks to use the handheld devices, and there were a couple of things that we noticed

which raise questions for us. One has to do with linking multiple

addresses for a single building, such as an apartment building.

Mr. CLAY. Yes.

Mr. SCIREˆ. Being able to map spot using one map spot for multiple addresses. In one instance we observed a lister who took a

couple hours to do I think it was 16 addresses. So, you know, obviously that would affect productivity.

Also there were some questions raised about the devices having

too much information for large assignment areas, which would slow

down the processing of the hand-held computer.

I want to emphasize, though, that these are preliminary observations, and we are still working with the Bureau and working with

Harris to find out what is the meaning of what we are observing.

Mr. CLAY. In the field did Harris respond to some of the issues

that you raised in an adequate amount of time? And did they provide onsite technical assistance when you pointed out issues with

them?

Mr. SCIREˆ. Yes. We, at the end of our trip in California for the

first visit, we did meet with Harris, including Mr. Murray, via telephone, to describe the things that we were observing so that they

could basically help us understand what they meant. At that point

they were pointing toward software upgrades.

I think your question is getting at what level of technical support

Harris is providing in the dress rehearsal locations. My understanding is that in each location they have a single person at the

technical help desk, and at some times they are quite busy.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Let me also thank the Director and you for being here today and

thank you for your service in coming before this committee.

This panel is dismissed. Thank you.

We will now set up for the second panel.

On our second panel we will hear from the Honorable Heather

Hudson, mayor of Greenville, MS, and vice president of the National Council of Black Mayors.

Thank you for being here, Mayor Hudson.

Ms. HUDSON. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. And we also have Mr. Bob Coats, census liaison for

the Governor of the State of North Carolina.

We appreciate your attendance today, also.

And Mr. Keith Hite, president of the National Association of

Towns and Townships and executive director of the Pennsylvania

State Association of Township Supervisors.

I welcome all of you and thank you for traveling to be with us

today.

Before we take your oral testimony, I want to note for the record

that we have also received testimony in writing from the Honorable

Kathleen Blanco, Governor of Louisiana; Ms. Mary Heim, chief of

the demographic research unit for the State of California Department of Finance; and Mr. David Bollinger, principal GIS manager

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for San Joaquin County, CA. We regret that they could not be with

us in person today but we appreciate very much their willingness

to cooperate and share their valuable perspectives in this matter.

[The prepared statements of Governor Blanco, Ms. Heim, and

Mr. Bollinger follow:]

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Mr. CLAY. It is the policy of the oversight committee to swear in

all witnesses before they testify. Would you all please stand and

raise your right hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

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

Each of you will have 5 minutes to make an opening statement.

Your complete written testimony will be included in the hearing

record. The yellow light in front of you will indicate you have 1

minute remaining. The red light will indicate that your time has

expired.

Mayor Hudson, we will begin with you. Go right ahead.

STATEMENTS OF HEATHER HUDSON, VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK MAYORS AND MAYOR,

GREENVILLE, MS; KEITH HITE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TOWNS AND TOWNSHIPS AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA STATE ASSOCIATION OF TOWNSHIP SUPERVISORS; AND ROBERT COATS, GOVERNOR’S CENSUS LIAISON, OFFICE OF STATE BUDGET MANAGEMENT,

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

STATEMENT OF HEATHER HUDSON

Ms. HUDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of myself and the National Conference of Black Mayors, thank you for the opportunity to have us share our views on

implementing the 2010 census. I am Heather Hudson, mayor of

Greenville, MS, and second vice president for the National Conference of Black Mayors, on behalf of our president, Mayor George

Grace, who could not be with us today, but he does send his regards.

First, the National Conference of Black Mayors is committed to

working with the Census Bureau to ensure an accurate count for

not only our member communities but all cities, towns, and villages

in these United States of America.

NCBM supports over 600 African American mayors in the United

States today, and we serve over 60 million people nationwide. The

majority of our communities, however, have populations of less

than 50,000 people, and most are minority in nature, and historically are the very communities that experience miscalculations in

the number of people that reside therein.

We know all too well the impact that incorrect tallies can have

on a community, as many of our member communities depend

greatly upon Federal tax dollars for local programs. For this reason, NCBM looks with great interest upon the LUCA program and

our role in the 2010 census process.

As has been stated by the Census Bureau, the census has a constitutional mandate to count everyone living in the United States,

count them only once, and count them in the right place, but how

can someone be counted if we don’t know where they are?

Our commitment, if allowed, is to assist by not only showing

where the people are, but helping to make sure that we get a proper count.

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As a mayor, I can say with surety that no one knows a community better than local officials. We know not only where the people

reside, but the patterns of movement throughout our own cities.

From the plans we see for housing and development to increases

and decreases in school enrollment, to the transfer of local utilities,

the local government is one of the best places to start in terms of

gaining a working knowledge of the number of people that reside

in a particular community.

However, without the proper resources we cannot provide this

type of assistance. Questions such as what is an eligible government, how are they contacted, is there any followup with our governments, the different options that we have, what are the secure

measures that we are allocated in order to assist—these are the

questions that we hear from our member communities.

In closing, there are three areas that we feel should be addressed

in order to assure an accurate and smooth-flowing census with the

full cooperation of the local governments.

First, all local governments must be provided the opportunity to

review and update addresses for their communities with the resources allocated therein. We understand that information is currently being mailed; however, a more concerted effort should be

made to ensure that every community is counted.

Second, on-the-ground training of all technology, forms, and processes to be used should be in place at this very moment.

Finally, the Census Bureau must make some accommodations in

replacing what we knew to be the dress rehearsal for 2008 and the

updates therein. This will provide vital information to both the Bureau and the local government offices on how well these procedures

are working.

Thank you again for the opportunity. We welcome any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hudson follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mayor Hudson, for that testimony.

Mr. Hite, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF KEITH HITE

Mr. HITE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On behalf of the National Association of Towns and Townships,

we would like to thank the chairman and the members of this subcommittee for allowing us the opportunity to discuss the impact of

the LUCA program on the Nation’s towns and townships.

As you noted, my name is Keith Hite. I am president of the National Association. I appear before you today on behalf of the more

than 12,000 towns and townships across America. At the present

time I serve as President of NATAT and also as executive director

of the State Association of Township Supervisors in Pennsylvania.

The National Association was formed more than 30 years ago to

provide America’s smaller communities, towns, townships, and

other suburban and rural localities with a strong voice in Washington, DC. Our purpose is to represent these smaller communities,

champion fair share of Federal funding decisions, and to promote

legislative and regulatory policies designed to strengthen grassroots local government.

Since 1976, the National Association has strived to educate lawmakers and other Federal officials about the unique nature and

needs of the Nation’s smaller communities and their town governments and the need for policies that reflect these needs and accommodate these needs, as well, both in the suburban and non-metropolitan areas of the Nation.

Of the approximately 39,000 units of local government in these

United States, 85 percent serve communities with less than 10,000

people, and nearly half have less than 1,000 residents. Nearly onequarter of all Americans live in rural areas. This is approximately

the same percentage of Americans that live in our central cities.

Despite the strong numbers of towns and townships, when it

comes to important funding and legislative decisions made in

Washington, many of our smaller communities can sometimes get

lost in the shuffle. As you know, many States and Federal programs allocate funds based in part on population. Under-counting,

therefore, is an important test and can be responsible for loss of deserved Federal funding for anti-poverty, law enforcement, education, infrastructure, and other critical programs.

A February 2003 GAO report indicated that in fiscal year 2000

about $283 billion in Federal grant moneys was distributed to

State and local governments, based in part on factors such as the

annual population estimates derived from the 1990 census. When

the population estimates were updated to reflect the 2000 census

results, and additional $388 million in Federal grant funding went

predominantly to 23 States that had above average estimate revisions.

Towns and townships cannot afford to be under-counted in the

2010 census. The National Association has been working hard to

encourage its members to accept the invitation to fully participate

in the LUCA program. NATAT supports the LUCA program and

joins with the Mayor in committing its members to its success. We

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recognize that LUCA provides smaller communities an opportunity

to avoid an under-count and help keep population estimates accurate.

During preparations for the 2000 census through the LUCA program, local officials were able to rectify problems that would otherwise have led to an even larger under-count. For example, in

Michigan the lines that were drawn to separate jurisdictions ran

through office buildings and college dormitories, and new housing

subdivisions were left off the census address list. LUCA then and

now gives towns and townships the opportunity to correct the census address files and improve the accuracy of the 2000 and hopefully 2010 census counts for smaller communities.

The census is of critical importance for our smaller communities.

As you noted at the outset, Mr. Chairman, for purposes of reapportionment, it stands alone as one of the single most important

issues. It also helps us with the funding of critical programs.

Towns and townships believe that fair representation in Congress

is a warrant that they deserve. Without an accurate count, smaller

communities would clearly be under-represented.

Of equal importance are the many Federal and State programs

that distribute moneys based on population counts. In my own

State of Pennsylvania, for example, the gasoline tax revenues are

distributed on population. If the count is not accurate, our communities must rely on things such as property tax to be able to fund

highway maintenance, highway reconstruction with those communities, and for our members in Pennsylvania they maintain more

miles of roads than the State Department of Transportation in the

six New England States combined, so when we are allocating liquid

fuels moneys, which is what it is referred to in Pennsylvania, the

population counts are critical to us.

Also, a portion of the fines that are collected by our State Police

are distributed to local governments based on population. Pennsylvania’s community development block grant program is dependent on population for the distribution of those critical Federal dollars. In Pennsylvania, for a community of less than 4,000, they receive no direct moneys. From 4,000 to 10,000, they are able to compete for those moneys. Again, the population count is critical.

In many other States served by the National Association, census

population counts also determine the structure of towns and townships and the types of services that they can provide. In Ohio, for

example, State law permits that a township under a certain population may adopt an alternate form of township government. Townships that have more than 5,000 people in an unincorporated territory may elect to become home ruled. If the township has more

than 15,000 in an unincorporated territory, the Board of Trustees

may adopt home rule without a vote of the residents. The population figure is based on the last census.

In order to become a city in Ohio, a village must have more than

5,000 people within its incorporated limits. Conversely, if a city

drops below 5,000 people within the incorporated territory, then

they must drop to village status. That, too, affects their funding opportunities.

In New York, the 932 towns are divided into three classes: second, first, and suburban, depending on the population and/or their

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assessed valuation. The classification of the town determines the

government structure of the town, as well as the authority for that

town government. For example, whether a town has three elected

assessors or one appointed assessor is determined in part by the

classification of a town.

In addition to the government structure, whether a town can or

must provide certain services to the residents of New York is determined in part by the population. The authority to set speed limits

on local roads is tied to a town’s population. The majority of towns

in New York do not have the authority to set speed limits on their

own roads. Instead, they must petition——

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Hite, let me stop you. I get it. I get it. Let me say

that the timer is malfunctioning.

Mr. HITE. I saw that.

Mr. CLAY. And you have exceeded your 5 minutes, but I do get

the point——

Mr. HITE. My apologies, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY [continuing]. Of how important the census is, and we

thank you and appreciate that.

Mr. HITE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. CLAY. You may wrap it up.

Mr. HITE. Just to close, let me join with so many others. We believe that local government clearly wants and needs to be a partner

in the census process through LUCA, and the members that we

represent, the National Association, are willing, able, and anxious

to do just that, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hite follows:]

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

I don’t think it is going to function properly, but we will note for

you when your 5 minutes are up. Mr. Coats, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT COATS

Mr. COATS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to be here

today, and thank you for selecting the Fayetteville area of North

Carolina as a dress rehearsal site for the LUCA program and the

2010 census dress rehearsal.

I have worked with census data since the 1990 census, and since

that time I have noticed a number of dramatic changes to the demands placed on census data. There has been a dramatic demand

for more timely data, for more accurate data, for data that is available in a more user-friendly format, and also the advent of the GIS

systems have placed a demand on having data that can be tied directly with mapping products.

The highest demands, in my experience, have come from policymaking communities, businesses, non-governmental organizations,

the academic communities, and the media in North Carolina.

To meet these increasing needs, the Census Bureau has risen to

the challenge by utilizing Internet resources and CD-ROMs, establishing dissemination partnerships with each State through the

State data center programs and the business and industry development centers programs. They have also created new products such

as the American community survey and the LUCA program.

The decennial census and other surveys, such as the American

community survey, rely on getting questionnaires to addresses and

getting responses back from those addresses. These addresses are

housed on the master address file.

While the Federal resources are used to update the master address file, the Census Bureau, to its credit, has recognized that

local input would improve the map resource even better. However,

the problem has been that local governments don’t participate consistently and we are left with an uneven quality on the map product, and therefore uneven coverage on census data.

So why don’t local governments participate with this LUCA program? I believe the answer, as I saw it reflected in the dress rehearsal in North Carolina, breaks down basically to communication. Invitation letters were mailed to highest elected officials, and

they were asked to designate LUCA liaisons in their communities.

Large local governments are very busy. Small local governments

have irregular business hours and may only be open 1 day a week.

The local officials that are contacted may not be familiar with the

LUCA program, which last happened before the 2000 census, or

may not be familiar with its impact. And the Census Bureau may

have had outdated contact information for these highest elected officials.

In North Carolina, the Regional Census Office, housed in Charlotte, has a very good working relationship with my office. We were

able to provide them with the most up-to-date contact information

for local officials. My office contacted local governments to discuss

the local impact and importance of the LUCA program. The Regional Census Office held promotional and training workshops in

the dress rehearsal area. The State contact networks, the State

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data center, facilitated these partnerships by allocating office

space, by making contact with their local governments. And the national headquarters staff from the U.S. Census Bureau, along with

public information officers, met in Raleigh with local officials and

toured the dress rehearsal area, meeting with local media outlets

and community leaders.

When communication and promotion is fostered, participation in

the LUCA program improves.

It is true that participation with LUCA and the census support

increase the communication and outreach, but the resulting participation is not the quality that U.S. Census Bureau anticipated or

desired. Some of the possible cause of this was local buy-in to the

LUCA program. Many local governments, specifically the local GIS

offices, felt that earlier census maps lacked the accuracy that they

had in their local offices.

In conversations with them and from the Regional Census Office,

the discussion came about discussing the MAF/TIGER Accuracy

Improvement Program [MTAIP]. In this discussion, it was revealed

that all the centerline files for census maps for the dress rehearsal

area had been realigned, and the entire State of North Carolina’s

maps would be realigned by the 2010 census date, meaning that

the new maps would be as accurate as the local maps. In that light,

local governments saw much more value in buying into the program, because they realized they weren’t supporting flawed products.

There was discussion of the joint promotional and training workshops. The workshops that are currently going on are the promotional workshops to educate local officials about what LUCA is.

During the dress rehearsal time, the promotional workshops and

training workshops happened at the same time. This ensured that

at least half the population was going to be bored at any one time.

The local officials did not need to know about the training aspect.

The people who were going to be doing the verification didn’t necessarily need to know the promotional aspect. So the outreach materials and the outreach conversations need to be targeted to the

appropriate audience.

On the technical support issue, there was a consistent problem

in getting local address data to the Census Bureau in the prescribed Census Bureau format. The Bureau mentioned that MAF/

TIGER Partnership Software would be available by the time of the

dress rehearsal, and at the current time that software is not available.

Also, there were limited training opportunities, limited phone

support opportunities to these technical workers.

In order for these tools and training to be effective, there has to

be consistent support and the tools have to be available to the people that need them.

Lack of presence was also a problem in terms of getting local

government buy-in to the LUCA program. In April 2007, the local

office opened in Fayetteville for the dress rehearsal area; however,

the LUCA program was conducted in the fall of 2006. If that regional office, that local office, had been opened slightly earlier,

there would have been a local presence for the Census Bureau and

local officials would have felt that there was an easier way of conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jan 14, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\39024.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tacting the Bureau for support or input. If possible, I would hope

that these local offices would be able to be opened sooner in the

LUCA cycle that is now underway.

To sum up my comments, North Carolina is firmly committed to

the LUCA program because we see the value in having accurate

census data, not only in apportionment here in the House of Representatives, but also in serving the daily needs of our communities.

We support the activities of the Charlotte Regional Office, who

have been firmly committed and have been extremely helpful in

working with us during this time, and we hope that they continue

those activities.

I hope that this subcommittee and the Congress, in general, will

continue to fund the Census Bureau in every way possible for their

very worthwhile work.

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to answering any

questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Coats follows:]

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

I want to thank the entire panel for their testimony.

Let me just ask a panel-wide question. We will start with Ms.

Hudson and go down the line.

The Bureau may have already addressed this, but share with us,

with this committee, what you think the Bureau may need to improve the liaison or the outreach with local governments, between

local governments and the Bureau, for issues that you all mentioned, like training and communicating, which is one point that

you both stressed, that there was a lack of communication. Should

there be a call center at the Bureau, or a troubleshooting process

that allows local governments to quickly get those issues in front

of the Bureau and then the Bureau respond?

Let me just start with you, Ms. Hudson? What do you see could

help fill some of the void here or could help in relationship between

local governments and the Bureau?

Ms. HUDSON. Definitely communication would be No. 1, without

a doubt. Nothing beats on-the-ground personnel, and when you are

dealing with your local government officials, be they mayors, city

clerks, be they even council members, whoever would be assigned

to work for that particular community, to have a one-on-one contact with an office; be it a regional office or a State office, to have

that one-on-one personnel contact is going to be one of the best

things that we can do.

What we hear from a lot of our member communities and mayors

when it comes to this topic is that they don’t know about the program. They haven’t heard about the program. My community is a

city that serves over 41,000 people, so we do have a liaison. We

have someone who is working with the LUCA program that was established because we got the information in the office. But I knew

from the outset that this was something very, very important because my community was one of those communities that was miscounted back in 2000, so we have this on our forefront.

But there are so many other communities that just do not, and

they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the allocations, they

don’t have the computers, they don’t have the Internet access, they

don’t have anything that will put them in a position to really use

this to the best of their ability. So we have to start with the communication, and have to start with that on-the-ground personnel to

assist some of the smaller communities.

Mr. CLAY. Does the Bureau offer local governments a 1–800

number that they can call in for troubleshooting, or have you witnessed that?

Ms. HUDSON. We were not made aware of one. I know the liaison

that works with LUCA works directly in my office, and she was

contacted. We received some mail that said that we needed to work

with this program. She is the person who is in charge of that, and

so she went to one of the training sessions and she came back with

a nice booklet.

Mr. CLAY. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Hite, how do you——

Mr. HITE. I agree with everything the Mayor said. I think one

of the missing components of all this was noted by Director

Kincannon when he made the comment that how a census geogVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jan 14, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\39024.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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rapher may see the process against a local official is dramatically

and significantly different, and there needs to be a bringing together of those two different viewpoints.

I think the big issue here is the diversity. We are a Nation of

diverse local governments of all shapes and sizes and footprints,

and in the interest of the membership that I represent we have to

recognize that these folks don’t necessarily have the in-house resources to be able to do the important work ahead.

So I agree with the Mayor that training, training, and training

is going to be an important part of all of this, and there needs to

be some more outreach done by the Census Bureau to better prepare our local officials or assist in that preparation.

Mr. CLAY. And that is how you get the local buy-in?

Mr. HITE. Absolutely.

Mr. CLAY. The local government buy-in of this?

Mr. HITE. And I think that is why there was a disconnect in the

2000 census, because we did not have that level of outreach, communication, and training.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Coat, how do we improve on the process here?

Mr. COATS. I think communication is definitely the key. In my

case I realized that the people conducting the promotional workshops and the technical training coming from the U.S. Census Bureau have a certain script that they have to follow in their training.

That script is very general. It doesn’t tie the necessary benefits of

the LUCA participation to the needs and the interests of local governments.

When I speak to my local governments, I can tell them that in

2000 North Carolina is the tenth largest State in population. We

had the highest number of challenges to census counts of any

State. That comes from us believing that our populations were

under-counted and our local governments were on the ball about

challenging what didn’t seem right to them.

When I talk to my local governments I can say, LUCA is your

opportunity to make sure you are right going into the county. It is

either an investment of time going into the census or it is a cost

of money by having bad census counts in the long term.

That is a very local, a very State-oriented approach, and I believe

that is what the census had in mind when they involved State participation with the LUCA program.

Another key part of that is developing partnerships. Many of

these local governments, when they get letters, feel that it is something that they have to do, that it is a mandate that the Federal

Government has dropped on the small resources that they do have,

and they felt left all alone in this program.

When I talked to them, I let my small, local communities know

that if you don’t feel that you have the people to do this, maybe

you can have a staff member that sits in with your county who is

verifying the addresses for your whole county, and that person will

focus on your resources. So it is letting them know that you are not

along, you can partner with your county, you can partner with

other communities, you can partner with councils of government,

which are part of our daily dissemination network with the Census

Bureau in North Carolina. So it is letting them know that they are

not alone and connecting them with the resources that are there.

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Now, there was some mention made of 800 numbers and the

training that is currently going on. There are two 800 numbers

that were mentioned—one of them was not active yet—and that

was going to be for the technical support for those people who were

using the MAF/TIGER Software. The other number was to connect

them with the Census Regional Office, which is a good step in the

right direction, but, as has been mentioned, the geographers who

work in that division are used to seeing this information all the

time. They tend to speak the language that local governments may

not necessarily speak in terms of looking at the information. So

being able to have someone in place who can kind of speak English

to these people helps an awful lot.

So, again, it is communication and partnership and making it

personal, as opposed to just a big national thing.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Let me ask Mayor Hudson, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,

the Bureau released a document called Special Population Estimates of Impacted Areas in the Gulf Coast. It has been widely reported that many people who evacuated from New Orleans went to

Texas and other parts of the country. According to the Bureau’s

analysis, the State of Louisiana experienced a net loss of over

340,000, and Mississippi a net loss of over 42,000 residents, while

Texas had a net gain of 136,000. In your opinion, have population

shifts created enumeration problems that are unique to the Gulf

Coast region? And, if so ordered, how would you suggest the Census Bureau and officials at the State and local levels address these

problems?

Ms. HUDSON. To answer your question, yes. I flew in from Gulf

Port, MS, this morning, and I am in Gulf Port currently for the

Mississippi Municipal League Conference, and driving up and down

Highway 90 you see numbers of houses that are vacant, but you

also see hotels, and you see hotels that have people who have lived

in them since the hurricane. How do you count a person or a family

that lives at a hotel? That is the type of question that people who

are in hurricane-impacted regions are facing, and those are the

types of questions that the partnership between the Census Bureau

and local governments can help to answer, because we know where

to find those people. We know where they are located. We know

those persons who are intending to come home, those persons who

are maybe located in a hotel or a shelter. We have that ability, but

it is going to take the partnership and the communication between

the two to develop a plan of action on how to count them and make

sure that we keep that count accurate.

Mr. CLAY. That is a very salient point you bring up, that people

are now living in hotels, and that is a very good question to ask

the Bureau. Do they plan on counting the people in the hotels in

that region?

Ms. HUDSON. There are a number of them that are not just in

that region but are across the south, as a whole. We talk about

hurricane-impacted areas, but the fact is that the entire United

States is now a hurricane-impacted area, and that is because people have moved everywhere, and you have people who are in the

process of returning but who are in shelters long term, who have

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been in hotels long term in a number of different areas across I

know the State of Mississippi.

Mr. CLAY. The Bureau will publish city-style and non-city style

addresses on a single list, as opposed to two separate lists, as was

done for the 2000 census. In your opinion, will this help or hinder

the local governments in their address review? I have never been

to Greenville, but I am not sure if it is a mixture of city blocks and

kind of more rural settings or not, but apparently the census wants

to do something different, as opposed to what they did in 2000. In

your opinion, will it help or hinder local governments?

Ms. HUDSON. It is going to have a mixed effect on all of our member communities, just because within the National Conference of

Black Mayors you have so many different types of communities—

rural, urban, inner city. You have such a mix there.

Ultimately I think it does provide more of a broad base for us

to look at and examine, but still it is going to take coming back to

working hand-in-hand with some of those member communities,

that if they do not understand one form, that they need explanation and assistance on how to determine what will work best for

that community.

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

Mr. Coats, I commend you on your efforts to ensure full participation in LUCA by governments in the State of North Carolina.

Based on your testimony, it appears that your State is being

proactive. You identify communication and promotion issues with

LUCA in your testimony. You stated that ‘‘Local and State governments whose representatives attend promotional events will be

most likely to participate in LUCA; thus, one key to increasing

LUCA participation would appear to be a higher level of communication between the Bureau and local and State officials.’’ Based

upon your experiences in North Carolina, what steps would you

recommend the Bureau take to create stronger channels of communication between the Bureau and State and local governments?

Mr. COATS. Within our dissemination network through the State

Data Center Program, we have affiliate relationships with the

North Carolina League of Municipalities and North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. Both of those organizations have

newsletter publications that are circulated monthly and have expressed an interest and a willingness to drop in any kind of articles, even if it is bullet points, that may come from the Census Bureau to keep awareness on census activities during this buildup to

the 2010 census.

Mr. CLAY. How can the Bureau encourage other States to behave

in a similar manner and actively encourage localities to participate

in LUCA?

Mr. COATS. In North Carolina’s perspective, I hope other States

don’t. It is entirely in our benefit for you all not to. [Laughter.]

It really is a local decision that has to be made. At conferences

that I have attended for the State Data Center Network, I believe

that the other States have that realization.

Mr. CLAY. You do?

Mr. COATS. I do.

Mr. CLAY. OK. You recommend that the Bureau use local resources such as State Data Centers to stress the importance of parVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:43 Jan 14, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\39024.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
74

ticipation in LUCA. How might the data centers facilitate the goal

of increasing participation by local government, and what could be

done to increase participation by local officials in these promotional

events?

Mr. COATS. For the dress rehearsal area we are talking about

nine counties around Fayetteville, NC, the military base that is

there. There are also pockets of rural areas in those areas, tribal

communities, Hispanic communities in those areas. It was not difficult for my office to contact the local governments in those areas.

When we get to the point that we are talking about the entire

Statewide coverage for LUCA, I don’t think that is going to be feasible. It is going to be more people calling the 100 counties and 525

different local governments that we have.

So I think in that case we need to use the resources that are already there, agencies like the League of Municipalities, the County

Commissioners, the Association of Broadcasters. The Census Bureau did a good job of facilitating Complete Count Committees

leading into the last census involving local community leaders, not

just elected officials, but religious leaders and media outlets in the

local areas.

Those areas tend to be much more in tune with their local communities. The local communities pay more to information they are

going to hear from a local radio station, a local newspaper, or from

a community leader than they will by getting a letter in the mail

from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Mr. CLAY. Let me ask you about the training. You recommended

that promotional and technical training be conducted separately. In

our April 24th hearing it was suggested that the training timeframe be expanded. How would you revise the schedule so that the

promotional and technical training are conducted in a timeframe

that provides maximum benefit to the participants?

Mr. COATS. For the current cycle, introductory letters have already been sent out to the highest elected officials. There was going

to be an invitational letter sent out in June to the highest elected

officials asking them to select liaisons and a participation level,

and technical training would be happening throughout the summer

with the actual window for conducting LUCA lasting through the

early fall.

I think that is an OK timeframe, because I would like to have

folks be able to go to the promotional training and then go to a

technical training workshop before they have to make their decisions on how they are going to participate. It provides them with

the opportunity to actually make a decision from a leadership point

of view, to identify the people who will actually be doing the process, and have them exposed to training before they have to make

a formal decision. I think that is a good timeframe.

I would like to have more local presence. I know that, from what

I have been told, there are plans to have 14 to 15 local census offices covering North Carolina. If those offices can be in place before

that decision has to be made, and if there could be something like

the April open house workshop done during that time period where

the promotional training is happening and the technical training is

happening, the community would have a better vision of what is

going on, and I think there would be more buy-in.

75

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

Mr. Hite, has the National Association of Towns and Townships

taken any proactive steps to ensure full participation by your members in LUCA?

Mr. HITE. I think so. We have been working with the Census Bureau in trying to get them to understand our membership. One of

the differences that would really set us apart maybe from the

League of Cities or the National Association of Counties is that our

membership, our elected officials, are for the most part volunteers,

have full-time jobs, and their role in local government is done on

a part-time basis. That is going to take a special kind of outreach.

We have been trying to work with the Census Bureau and rely on

our individual State publications to be able to get the information

out.

I think that for each of the member States in the national associate one of our greatest challenges is how are we going to get our

States as mobilized, for example, as North Carolina has reported

it is?

Mr. CLAY. We have heard that the address list and maps provided by the Bureau are not quite as current as those maintained

by local governments. Have you found this to be the experience of

your membership? And, if so, do you have recommendations for correcting the problem?

Mr. HITE. Well, it has been widespread among our members, and

we have been hearing that criticism for some time now. I guess the

simple response to how to improve that is to get the local officials

more engaged in that process.

I was talking to someone earlier today, and I think a classic example that everybody has heard of Hershey, PA.

Mr. CLAY. Yes.

Mr. HITE. There is no community called Hershey, PA. It is in a

township, and the township has not been recognized in those

counts. They look at Hershey. There is no community. There is no

government structure. So the likelihood is that the count in that

area has gone to another community. So as a result, that particular

township has to suffer, unless it wants to take on the cost and the

burden of doing the census itself and making the appeal.

Mr. CLAY. On that point, we have heard from a number of entities that the appeals process can be quite trying for local governments.

Mr. HITE. It is particularly trying for those volunteers.

Mr. CLAY. Can you tell us a little bit about your members’ experience with the appeals process? And do you have any recommendations for improving it?

Mr. HITE. I don’t have a great deal of information on it, Mr.

Chairman. We could get that from our members nationwide. I do

know in Pennsylvania that some of the officials that I have talked

to, especially in those areas that they might have a full-time professional manager, that from the 2000 census trying to go through

the appeals process was just so cumbersome and so bureaucratic

that they just threw up their hands and walked away from it.

As far as specific detail, I would have to get more information for

you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. We would love to receive that. Thank you.

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Mr. Coats, tell us about the appeals process, what you know

about the appeals process.

Mr. COATS. There are a number of different ways that this can

be faced. The easiest way to do an appeal is to do LUCA and to

participate in such a way that when you see a count come back you

can say, well, we think it should be this or that.

Barring that, once the census count is done there was a Count

Question Resolution Program [CQR], that ran for, I believe, 3 years

after the census data were released. Challenges could be made to

those census counts, but only by local government units. So if a

town was not incorporated, it had no mayor, there was no way that

they could challenge a count. States, counties, or incorporated

places could challenge their census counts based on a certain number of criteria. Was there a procedural problem? Were census questionnaires just not delivered to an area? Were boundaries not reported?

We had a town in North Carolina that was completely missed because they had not reported that they had incorporated, so something like that.

Based on that, the census would look at the data that they gathered, would look at the boundaries that they gathered, and they

would change either the population or the total housing unit count

for that area. All the underlying data stayed the same, so the population may go up or down, but the race sums that might equal that

total would not change. It was simply a total population count and

a housing unit count that would change.

The other option, if you felt that a count question resolution

didn’t meet your needs, is to ask for a special census to be done.

The special census, as a selling point to my local communities, the

local census is paid for by the local governments. The State does

not help you do that. The Federal Government does not help local

governments pay for another census to be done. And it is usually

not cheap. So the local governments have to come up with their

own money to ask the Census Bureau to come out and essentially

re-conduct a census for their area. Again, they don’t really know if

they are going to get numbers that they like or not, but that is an

option.

Mr. CLAY. I am certainly aware of that. The city that I represent,

St. Louis, MO, has done it twice in the last 4 years and were successful on the second try. I didn’t realize they had to pay for it.

Thank you for that response.

I thank the panel for your testimony today. I certainly appreciated hearing it.

This hearing demonstrated the need for communication, better

communication between local governments and the Bureau. As we

make our way toward the 2010 census, it has certainly pointed out

the need for strategic communications and a process to ensure that

local governments buy in to the census for 2010.

Again, thank you all for today’s hearing. That concludes this

hearing. The hearing is adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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