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THE 2010 CENSUS INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS

CAMPAIGN; CRITERIA FOR IMPLEMENTATION:

MEASUREMENTS FOR SUCCESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Serial No. 111–27

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

(

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

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERRY E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

——— ———

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

——— ———

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

DIANE E. WATSON, California

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

DARRYL PIGGEE, Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 22, 2009 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Gordon, Judith J., Principal Assistant Inspector General for Audit and

Evaluation, U.S. Department of Commerce; and Jeff Tarakajian, chairman and CEO, Draftfcb ................................................................................ 97

Gordon, Judith J. ...................................................................................... 97

Tarakajian, Jeff ......................................................................................... 107

Groves, Robert, Director, Census Bureau ....................................................... 6

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

Gordon, Judith J., Principal Assistant Inspector General for Audit and

Evaluation, U.S. Department of Commerce, prepared statement of ........ 99

Groves, Robert, Director, Census Bureau:

Letter dated September 30, 2009 ............................................................. 61

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 12

McHenry, Hon. Patrick T., a Representative in Congress from the State

of North Carolina, prepared statement of ................................................... 189

Tarakajian, Jeff, chairman and CEO, Draftfcb, prepared statement of ...... 109

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THE 2010 CENSUS INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN; CRITERIA FOR IMPLEMENTATION: MEASUREMENTS FOR SUCCESS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

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 2:01 p.m., in room

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

Present: Representatives Clay, McHenry, and Westmoreland.

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

clerk; Frank Davis, professional staff member; Yvette Cravins,

counsel; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; Leneal Scott, information systems manager (full committee); Adam Hodge, deputy press

secretary (full committee); John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director; Dan Blankenburg, minority director of outreach/senior advisor; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk/Member liaison; and

Chapin Fay, minority counsel.

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

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

2010 Census Integrated Communications Campaign; Criteria for

Implementation: Measurements for Success.’’

Today’s hearing has a twofold purpose. We will begin the hearing

with an update of Census operations from Dr. Groves, our new

Census Director. This is Dr. Groves’ first appearance before the Information Policy Subcommittee, so welcome, Dr. Groves. After Dr.

Groves’ presentation, I will have questions for Dr. Groves, along

with the ranking minority member.

In the second part of the hearing, we will hear testimony regarding the 2010 census integrated communications plan from our entire panel and proceed with questions from Members in the usual

format.

And, without objection, the Chair and the ranking minority member will have 5 minutes to make opening statements after Dr.

Groves’s update of Census operations. All other Members seeking

recognition will hold their opening statements until the second part

of the hearing, where they can make opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes.

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

the record.

Let me start with an introduction of our new Census Director,

Dr. Robert Groves.

President Barack Obama nominated Robert M. Groves for Director of the U.S. Census Bureau on April 2, 2009, and Dr. Groves

was confirmed by the Senate on July 13, 2009. Dr. Groves began

his tenure as Director on July 13, 2009.

Dr. Groves had been director of the University of Michigan Survey Research Center and research professor at the Joint Program

in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Groves was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1982, elected a member of the International Statistical

Institute in 1994, and named a national associate of the National

Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, in 2004.

Dr. Groves was the Census Bureau’s Associate Director for Statistical Design, Methodology, and Standards from 1990 to 1992. In

2008, Dr. Groves became a recipient of the prestigious Julius

Shiskin Memorial Award in recognition for contributions in the development of economic statistics.

Dr. Groves has authored or coauthored seven books and more

than 50 articles. Dr. Groves’s 1989 book, ‘‘Survey Errors and Survey Costs,’’ was named 1 of the 50 most influential books in survey

research by the American Association of Public Opinion Research.

His book, ‘‘Nonresponse in Household Interview Surveys,’’ with

Mick Couper, written during his time at the Bureau, received the

2008 AAPOR Book Award.

Dr. Groves has a Bachelor’s Degree from Dartmouth College and

a Master’s Degree in statistics and sociology from the University of

Michigan and also a Doctorate at the University of Michigan.

Again, welcome, Dr. Groves.

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

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Mr. CLAY. And it is the policy of the Oversight and Government

Reform Committee to swear in our witnesses before they testify.

Would you please stand and raise your right hand?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. And let the record reflect that the witness answered

in the affirmative.

And, Dr. Groves, would you please proceed?

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GROVES, DIRECTOR, CENSUS

BUREAU

Dr. GROVES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and other members

of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity for being here.

Upon my confirmation, I promised Congress and Secretary Locke

that I would spend the first month of my directorship evaluating

the key components of the 2010 census. I have done that.

The reason for this, as you know, as this committee knows well,

is that the difficulties with the hand-held computer development in

the middle of the decade required a major replanning. And many

things have happened since those events in 2008, but I needed to

take time to make my own professional assessment.

Let me give you a sense of how I did this. Before I arrived, plans

were in development to bring on two consultants, former Census

Bureau Director Ken Pruitt and former Principal Associate Director John Thompson. They are in place, they were in place when I

arrived, and I have used them greatly to help me on this risk assessment. I have also consulted with members of the National

Academy of Sciences Panels of the Census. I have reached out to

a lot of key academic scientists around the country and, actually,

around the world with relevant technical skills. I have met with

the staff of GAO, of OMB, of the Office of the Inspector General

in Commerce. I have talked to project leaders of all our major contractors. I am meeting twice weekly with MITRE Corp., contractors

who offer independent evaluations of major Census activities. And

then I have had just tons of productive meetings with the administrative and technical leadership within Census. This has given me

the basis of what I will report today.

I have four different kinds of comments. I want to tell you my

assessment of the 2010 census as a survey methodologist, the design on paper, as it were. I will go through some external challenges I see facing the 2010 census. I will go through internal challenges. And then I want to report on changes I have made to Census experimental programs.

First, let’s look at the design of the 2010 census. I can say with

absolute assurance as a professional survey methodologist that if

I wrote down the design features of the 2000 census next to the design features of the 2010 census, I would take the 2010 census in

a flash. This is a better design, and I am sure most of my colleagues around the world would agree with this.

Why do I say this? Using only the short form of the questionnaire is a good idea. This should help encourage public participation. Sending bilingual questionnaires to 13 million households, a

first for the Census, is a good idea. We have known for decades

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that supplying people replacement questionnaires if they don’t return the first one is a good idea. This should increase cooperation.

And you know, I am sure this committee knows, that there are

two new questions in the short-form questionnaire specially designed to improve the coverage properties of the census. These are

good ideas. You also know that the master address file was updated throughout the decade, and that should give us a better set

of addresses from which we do our mailing.

A new operation called Group Quarters Validation that is going

to go on in just a few weeks should improve the quality of our listings on crucial kinds of houses that are hard to cover: dormitories,

multi-unit structures, and so on. And then, as this committee

knows better than I, the additional funding provided by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is making a difference for our

partnership and outreach activities in a major way.

So, with this kind of assessment, I say again it is an easy judgment that most professionals would prefer the 2010 design. But a

superior design doesn’t make, necessarily, for a superior product,

and so I want to speak to a set of challenges that I see remaining

for my and my colleagues at the Census Bureau. And I will start

with a set of internal challenges.

First, the replan of the census in 2008 brought on a new leadership team with fewer censuses under their belt than we have seen

in past decades. This weakness, however, in my judgment, is countered by a much more formal and open and transparent risk management process that was adopted during the replanning.

And to bolster this further, I have decided to continue vigorous

use of external advisers, both through existing contracts and with

John Thompson and Ken Pruitt. Further, I am extremely fortunate

to have Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Nancy Potok,

who was recently appointed, who is a former principal associate director with whom I enjoy consultative relationships.

Second, the second internal challenge, like a lot of Federal agencies, the Census Bureau has experienced significant retirements in

senior ranks. I am especially concerned about this at the senior

mathematical statistical ranks. While we are trying to aggressively

recruit new talent, I will attempt to bring in some outside talent

of that nature.

Third, as you know, because of the replanning of the census

away from the handhelds for the nonresponse followup stage, we

are using paper-based operations. The control system for those operations is being written, as we speak, with a talented group of

programmers in Suitland. But this phase of development is very

tightly scheduled, and it is worth concern.

As you know, a recent GAO report called for a complete end-toend test of this paper-based operation control system. And I have

examined that recommendation and met with a lot of people about

the testing process for this system.

The current plan within the Census Bureau is to have an integrated test of core subsystems of the overall design. I asked for an

outside review of the definition of what that ‘‘core’’ meant, and that

review satisfied me that the definition does, indeed, represent what

should be tested.

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There will also be a large load test of this control system around

Thanksgiving, which should attempt to simulate the full operational load. I have also asked that this test include real users at

the skill levels of the users of the system during production. I have

asked that the testing design include sequential testing of each of

the planned releases of the software.

We have at Census two simulated local Census Offices, one at

Suitland and one in Stockton, CA. They will be key components of

the test to make the test realistic, and I support that design.

I should also note that we have created an internal review team

over this software development, led by our new CIO, Brian

McGrath. It also contains the Chief Technical Officer of Commerce

and other experts. They have already provided value added, in my

belief. Three changes have been made based on their input that

should improve the overall design and implementation of the software, and I look forward to other changes from the group.

The fourth internal challenge is that, at this day, on this day, we

do not yet know the quality of the master address file. We are

going to know that in a matter of weeks. When we know that, we

will have, in my hope, greater assurance that we have a master address file that will serve us well in the following stages. I would

be happy to report to you on those findings when we have them.

Fifth, I believe there is a current challenge regarding cost estimation and cost control within the decennial census operations and

the Census Bureau more broadly. In my belief, we need better cost

estimation and control at the Bureau. One finding of the review of

the address canvassing operation that you may know about was

that the cost models used to guide the work didn’t forecast the total

costs completely well. We have to strengthen the cost information

and control system within the Bureau. We have already intervened

in processes to tighten that up for nonresponse followup, which is

a very large activity that will take place in the summer of next

year.

So these are the five principal internal challenges, in my belief.

There are four external challenges, I believe.

One, and the most important for this committee and for me and

for all the leadership of the country, is estimating the mail return

rate. What will the American public do when we send them out

these forms? This is a very difficult thing to estimate. This is something I have spent my life trying to estimate, so I know the difficulty.

The reason it is difficult to estimate is that the population has

changed in the last 10 years. In this recession, the vacancy rate of

households is much higher than it was in 2000. More and more

families are doubling up in houses, due to foreclosures and other

events. The rate of people experiencing homelessness is higher.

And, at the same time, we have a public debate and attention over

immigration issues. And then, five, in other surveys that we have

been doing, the response rates are declining throughout the decade.

All of these things point to some difficulty in estimating what is

going to happen when we mail out forms to the American public.

Will they return them? That is a very important thing, as this committee knows, because for each 1 percentage point misestimation of

that, large sums of money are involved in sending people out to folVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:45 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\54383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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lowup. So we have to get that right. That is a big external challenge.

Second, we are in a new media environment relative to 2000.

You know this well. More and more people get the news from nontraditional sources. We are doing all we can to learn about the

blogosphere and how it is going to affect the image of the Census

Bureau and the behavior of the American public. We have

launched a media response team that is meeting every Wednesday

morning to help us get the facts out about census in a way that

may benefit the return rate.

Third, there is a challenge for which I need your help. I am asking Members of Congress and all census stakeholders to work with

us to ensure that the census is not tainted by intense political debates driving the news media. I can’t stress this point strongly

enough. If the public believes that the census data are slanted by

partisan influence of one side or the other, the credibility of the

statistics is destroyed. Once destroyed, the public trust can’t be

easily or quickly restored, and we are in deep trouble, both as a

Census Bureau, as a census, and as a country, in my belief.

The fourth external challenge is that we live in a digital environment that raises the threat of Internet scams and cyber crimes like

phishing and the widespread use of the Census Bureau logo and

the brand. I have directed the Chief Information Officer of the Census Bureau to establish a team that unites our IT security officials

with experts from the private sector. And I would be happy to report on this in the near future, about how we are going to swoop

in on fake Web sites that appear to be Census Bureau Web sites

during this census.

Those are the internal and external challenges. Let me tell you

four things that I have done to change features of the experimental

program in the Census.

No. 1, the first concerns the census coverage measurement program, which is used to measure differential undercount. As you

know, this design has come under some criticism by the National

Academy of Sciences, and that has to do with the very late interviewing start. This is the mechanism by which we measure the

quality of the census. I am concerned about the quality of the recall

of where people were on April 1st, when they fall into this sample.

I am concerned about the quality of the matching operations.

I have brought together a group of statisticians from around the

country to give us advice on how beef up the quality of the measurement of the census coverage program at the risk of the sample

size of this. This is a tradeoff decision, but, in the professional

judgment of the statisticians that I have been consulting, it appears that we can build a better quality estimate of the census if

we cut some of the sample and put more money into the quality

of the measurement.

Second, we will development a master trace project that will follow cases through the census cycle. This will be a research tool to

understand the tradeoff of operations and the quality impacts.

Third, we will mount an Internet measurement, a reinterview

study for the census that will focus on how people behave differently when they fill out a Web questionnaire versus a paper

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questionnaire. This will be a critical component of looking forward

about how we use Internet measurement.

And then, fourth, we will mount a post-hoc administrative record

census using administrative record data systems we have within

the Census Bureau, micro-linking them to returns in the census to

ask the question: If we had done an administrative census in 2010,

what kinds of people would have been included? What kinds of people had been missed? And how are the data reported? How are the

attributes of people reported versus their self-reports, or comparing

their self-reports to administrative records?

So I have gone through internal and external challenges and also

have given you four changes I have made. The internal challenges,

the uncertainty that I am most concerned about are the programming tasks on the paper-based operations control system and the

not-yet-known quality of the master address file.

But I want to emphasize this as strongly as I can: These uncertainties, Mr. Chairman, are swamped by the uncertainties about

how the American public are going to respond when we send out

this questionnaire. And it is this that we should focus on, I think,

as the leadership of this country, because this is the single most

important thing we can coalesce around to improve the quality of

the census.

My clock is not working, and I don’t know how I am doing on

time.

Mr. CLAY. You are doing just fine, Mr. Director.

Dr. GROVES. OK. Let me say a few things about the communications plan, and let me know if I am going too long here.

I want to turn to the integrated communications plan because I

know you are interested in this. You know why this is important:

Because it is a chief tool to improve the mail response rate, to address differential undercount, and to assure at that last stage when

we send out enumerators to knock on doors that people will understand why they are there and will cooperate with them.

Now, I understand before I came on board this subcommittee had

a briefing on this program, I think it was last spring. So I won’t

go over the entire program, but I would be happy to give you a

more formal briefing later if you want.

I directed Associate Director Steve Jost to do a complete scrub

of the communications campaign when they came in. He was there

a little before I was there. And the goals of this program articulated at that point were to target traditionally hard-to-count and

linguistically isolated groups to improve their mail response rates,

but also to help increase the overall mail response rate in order to

reduce the workload on the nonresponse followup operation—a nonresponse followup operation that I remind us is now a paper-based,

pretty labor-intensive operation.

In addition, there was in place an academic assessment panel,

and we used them to give us guidance and feedback and ideas to

improve the communications campaign. And then, as I have already mentioned, through the ARRA money, $100 million was

added to advertising activities. We can increase our paid media efforts with that extra money, including $43 million specifically for

local advertising buys.

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The balance of those stimulus funds will be directed to partnership support, to public relations, to the census in the schools program that I think you have been briefed on already, and to the implementation of a 2010 census road tour. With that additional

funding, in adjusted dollars, we are now exceeding the scope of the

2000 census communications campaign.

Moreover, because funds are available in fiscal year 2009 which

can be used for the advanced purchases of advertising time, these

funds are expected to provide greater exposure of the Census Bureau’s message than in 2000. And there is a reason for this: Proportionately more of the money is targeted to low-response areas than

was true in the 2000 effort that was more nationally targeted.

At this point, the nonresponse followup media buys haven’t been

fully planned, negotiated, or bought, but our target frequency is

more than five contacts over the course of the nonresponse followup

campaign. If our estimates are right on this, the American public

will see the Census Bureau image and get the message many times

throughout this campaign. It is multitargeted, multimedia, multilingual, and, to my joy, research-based.

One part of the plan already in place will allow us to assess and

respond to potential issues stemming from the replan, and that is

a continuous tracking and monitoring system. So this will be an

advertising campaign for which we will have ongoing, near realtime data of how things are going. Money has been held back to

retarget if we need to focus on areas that are showing unexpected

results.

Let me give you kind of a hit parade of the things that are the

features. We have expanded the number of languages in the paid

advertising campaign from 14 to 28. We have revamped the Web

site that will actually go live in a few weeks. I urge you and your

staffs to look at this when it is live. It should be kind of cool.

We have upgraded the census in the schools program, expanding

it from K to 8 to K to 12, in 28 different languages. We have expanded the plans and the scope of the census road tour, something

that was quite successful in 2000. We have doubled the sampling

of the National Partnership Office, and they are working together

with their colleagues in other functional areas at the Bureau. And

then we have expanded our language assistance programs in a variety of ways, using an advance letter and other tools.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McHenry, you asked in a recent

letter, I think it was September 9th, that you sent to me for updated budget estimates for advertising among the specific population groups. We are in the middle of setting of seeking RFP responses and trying to achieve those targets. We are reviewing and

finalizing the creative decisions for use of the ARRA money. And

we are launching media negotiations for national and local advertising buys. We think by late October, early November, we will be

in shape to give you all of the details that you deserve and you

would like to know and be happy to meet with you at that time.

Those are my remarks. I am happy to be here with you, and I

thank you for your interest. And I would be happy to answer your

questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Groves follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Dr. Groves.

Let me go to the ranking member now. We will each ask a series

of questions, and we will then call the rest of the panel forward.

So I will recognize Mr. McHenry.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you

for holding this hearing. It is nice that we can have a bipartisan

hearing, and we are all equally interested in what the Census Bureau is doing in terms of communications and preparing for census

day, which is just over—well, just 6 months away, less than 6

months away.

Dr. Groves, congratulations on your appointment and getting

through the process.

Dr. GROVES. Thank you, sir.

Mr. MCHENRY. We are very happy you are at the Bureau, and

we welcome you before the committee. Thank you.

And I also do want to take a moment and thank you for your decisive leadership when it came to the issue of ACORN. This was

an issue that not all of us have raised, but I, in particular, raised

it repeatedly before your appointment. And my concern was what

you mentioned in your testimony about other things, is the credibility of the Bureau and the brand, the Census Brand, and its use by

other organizations. And so I commend you for your decisive action

there. I know it hasn’t won wide acclaim, but I think it is important to the integrity of the census. So thank you so much for that.

Well, my staff and the chairman’s staff, as well as the subcommittee’s staff, have heard from the Bureau; they were briefed

by the Bureau on what happened with the address canvassing and

how successful that was. They said at that time that there would

likely be a report in early November. Is that still the case?

Dr. GROVES. I know we are doing the analysis and processing on

that file right now. We have increased the kind of diagnostics we

are seeking out of the file. Whether that date is exactly the right

date, we will certainly have information about that time and would

be happy to share with you as soon as we have it. This is a very

important component, as you know. We’ve got to get this thing

right.

Mr. MCHENRY. Now, you mentioned in your testimony what that

master address file looks like, how valid it is and how strong it is.

Does that relate back to the canvassing results?

Dr. GROVES. Yeah. As you know, the process we go through is a

pretty open one. We seek input from local areas for addresses that

they know and want to add to that file. So we went out and, believe it or not, visited 145 million different addresses in the country. So every address in the country, basically, was visited.

On 98 percent of those, we took GPS coordinates to help locate

them. And we verified whether we could find the unit, forward it.

And when we had trouble locating the unit or couldn’t find the unit

or it was missed in space, it was mis-geocoded, as we say, then we

made a note of that.

And that process will identify—some of those could not be found.

A common reason for that is that there is a plan to build a subdivision, a small subdivision. Building permits may have been let, and,

in this recession, the houses weren’t yet built, but they are planned

to be built. And in those kinds of cases, we would mark those for

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potential delete. We actually keep the records on the file, but it

wouldn’t be part of the mailing operation.

Mr. MCHENRY. So that process is pretty massive. But it is likely

your target date is sometime in November to, sort of, have this?

Dr. GROVES. I could get you an exact date on this. I promise,

we’ll get back to you.

Mr. MCHENRY. Would you be willing to come back before the end

of the year and testify about it?

Dr. GROVES. This is the kind of information that your committee

deserves, and we would be happy to share it.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And we’d hope

to have you back, you know, a time or two before March of next

year, as well, to make sure that we are, sort of, up to date, we

know what needs to be communicated, and what other Members of

Congress can help communicate for the Bureau, as well.

Dr. GROVES. We’d love to do that. In fact, knowing and getting

the word out about what are the next operations that we are

doing—for example, we are mounting this big Group Quarters Validation Operation in just a couple weeks. We are out there listing

for the coverage measurement study. And the more we get the

word out through you and receive your questions, I think the better

the whole country is for the census.

Mr. MCHENRY. Uh-huh. And I’ll have additional questions on the

communications effort. But there’s one story that a constituent told

me. He said that he was working in his yard one day and a gentleman came by, just was walking down the street, and had a

handheld and said, ‘‘Is this your house?’’ He says, ‘‘Who are you?’’

He says, ‘‘I’m with the Census Bureau, and we just need to confirm

your address.’’ And he said, ‘‘How dare he.’’ And I thought, ‘‘well,

actually, he’s trying to save you money, so he can just mail you

something and you can respond back.’’

And so the communications effort is going to be very important

so that when that guy is working in his yard and somebody from

the Census comes by, he goes, ‘‘Oh, I didn’t mail in my form,’’ so

there’s some awareness there. And I certainly appreciate that. And

I think the committee, as well as Congress, on a bipartisan basis,

wants to make sure that we have the money there necessary, the

resources there necessary, so that we can get the message out and

communicate effectively across every community in this country, as

the Constitution mandates.

And in your testimony, your written testimony says, and what

you in essence said, ‘‘One of the findings in our review of the address canvassing operation was that the cost models used to guide

the work did not forecast correctly total costs, and we experienced

a cost overrun in components of that operation. We need to

strengthen our cost information management structures within the

Census Bureau.’’

Can you go into further detail about the amounts and maybe the

components that experienced cost overruns?

Dr. GROVES. Well, I would be happy to brief you on the exact

numbers, but let me give you just rough orders of magnitude.

One of the things that was discovered I don’t view as a

misestimation of the cost model, but an unexpectedly large workVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:45 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\54383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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load. So the size of the number of addresses that we went out with

was larger than we thought.

Now, why did that happen? Well, this was the first decade where

we had continuous updates, and so we were receiving from the

Postal Service routinely through the decade more and more addresses. And this was, kind of, the first opportunity to go out there

and check all of those. Estimating that is a hard thing to do, and

so roughly half of the overrun is higher workload.

The most troubling part of the overrun for me, from my perspective, is about a $30 million component of the overrun that had to

do with a component of work that occurred if we found one of those

addresses as a potential delete; you couldn’t find the address.

Then, appropriately, and I think to the benefit of the Census Bureau, there were quality control procedures to followup to make

sure that really was something that should have been deleted. And

those were costly operations.

So part of the misestimation had to do with not anticipating so

many deletes out of the file, because in 2000 there weren’t as

many, proportionally. So that was the kind of misestimation.

What we are doing right now because of that—you know, that

operation is over. We can’t save the money that was spent. But we

can put in place procedures to try to prevent such overruns from

happening in the future.

And there are, kind of, two things happening now for nonresponse followup cost estimation. We are doing a big scrub of assumptions at a high level, and that will produce a new estimate.

And then we are going to bring in folks at the operations level and

build what some people term a ‘‘bottom-up’’ cost model. We are actually going to have two cost estimation procedures, and when they

don’t agree, we are going to fight about what’s the right assumption. And I think that fighting is really a healthy kind of thing to

zero in on the costs.

Mr. MCHENRY. Uh-huh. And so this is basically what you are

going to do for the estimated $15 billion, you know, the billions

that are going to be spent next year, you are taking this model——

Dr. GROVES. Well, this will be about a $2 billion component related to nonresponse followup. This is the May-June-July big push.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. And so there are some lessons out of that.

One, you mentioned before that you had—well, that Mr.

Mesenbourg mentioned in his testimony, which was that you had

highly qualified applicants, and you didn’t have to have those additional interviews. And so you could foresee some savings next year

on not having to have multiple interviews and, in essence, people

not wanting to stay with the job or dropping out.

Dr. GROVES. Let me tell you some of that. I have been going

across the regions now, and in every region that I have been to the

story is the same.

This horrible recession we are going through has a benefit for us,

and the benefit is more applicants of better quality. And, once they

are hired, they don’t quit. They work as many hours as they can

possibly get. This is all very good for us.

That lesson of address canvassing we got. And it is adjusting targeting for hiring of nonresponse followup. I guarantee you that.

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Mr. MCHENRY. OK. So those assumptions are—and you are going

to have some more estimates going forward for this committee?

Dr. GROVES. Absolutely. We’d be happy to share things with you.

You know, this is tough work. I don’t even want to say it’s easy,

because you are making predictions about future behaviors that

you can’t really observe. But we are going to do it honestly. We are

going to use multiple methods. And we’ll see——

Mr. MCHENRY. I thought that was a career you have chosen for

yourself.

Dr. GROVES. Well, I know, I know, I know. It is a career.

Mr. MCHENRY. Estimating, yeah.

You know, as a component of this, are there any specifics, any

specific ideas for controlling these costs that you can give us as an

example?

Dr. GROVES. Yeah. As a real easy example on the thing we were

just talking about, every survey organization, every census around

the world hires more people than they think they need to do the

job, right? And we don’t need to do as much of that as we thought

we did. So we can reduce those hiring and training costs in a major

way.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you.

And I was just informed very politely by the chairman that little

red light does mean something. So I yield back the no time that

I have remaining.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry. And your colleague, Mr.

Westmoreland, kind of bluntly reminded you.

Let me also followup with how Mr. McHenry started and say

that, in a private phone conversation, I commended the Director for

his prompt action that he took with ACORN. Let me publicly state

that I agree with the Director’s position, as far as removing

ACORN from the 2010 census.

You took prompt action. And they had become a distraction. So,

very good. And I support you, support your actions.

Let me ask you, what actions do you plan on taking for the nonresponse followup operation to avoid similar cost overruns to those

experienced doing the address canvassing operation? Anything different?

Dr. GROVES. Well, I think the first thing to note, and I haven’t

said it yet today, about nonresponse followup, it’s a tougher job. It’s

a job that is done in the evenings and on weekends. You have to

go to an address when people are at home. And so the activities

of address canvassing are only partially informative to us about

what’s going to happen in nonresponse followup. That is just a caution about how difficult it is.

But some of the things we are putting in place are those that will

give us more information at a lower level of detail about how, in

different local Census Offices, how different assignment areas are

responding. Do we need more resources in one place or another?

Are local Census Offices that are using one particular approach or

calling at a certain rate more effective than others?

What we hope to do is both at the national and regional and local

level, to have more integrated information, near real-time, to check

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and monitor progress so that we can deploy resources where they

are needed as efficiently as possible.

Mr. CLAY. What steps are you taking to ensure that the temporary field staffs follow proper procedures for succeeding operations, to avoid the problems reported by the IG during address

canvassing?

Dr. GROVES. Right. We saw the IG report; I looked at it. And we

accept and appreciate what they are doing. I think I need to say

that publicly, because I believe it. What we did with that was to

act on that information as soon as we could to intervene.

You asked a slightly different question, and that is, what can you

do at a system level to assure that all the troops at low levels are

doing what they are trained to do? In addition to good training, we

have in place, as you know supervisory and evaluative criteria

that, if we see workers, especially at this very compressed, nonresponse followup stage, if we see workers violating the training

guidelines, we can intervene and terminate them very quickly. And

we have those management procedures in place.

Hiring such a large group of people that we will do is not a simple task. It will be quite likely that one of those people is not following—at least one of those people is not following training guidelines. We can’t fully prevent this. We can, however, have management structures in place to intervene as quickly as possible, and

we do.

Mr. CLAY. Also, you are now in the process of opening an additional 344 local Census Offices, for a total of 494. How is that process going?

Dr. GROVES. Oh, pretty good. We are on target on signing—you

know, this is a massive operation. It’s just incredible, looking at it.

So there are leases involved where we need the partnership with

GSA. You have to build out these places; then you have to get

equipment and furniture in all of them. And this is like a huge

logistical operation.

I thought a clever thing was done on the initial local Census Offices. As you know, one of our subcontractors, Harris, comes in and

sets up computer networks. They did a few of the LCOs, and they

sort of stopped and said, ‘‘OK, how are we doing? What are we

doing wrong? How could we do this better?’’ and retooled slightly.

And then they are rolling that out for others.

So, so far, so good. We had a few glitches in a certain area with

leases, but those are getting cleaned up. So we are optimistic on

this one.

Mr. CLAY. Good.

The need to comply with Federal legislation associated with FBI

background checks is of significant importance to me. And I would

like to ask you about the Bureau’s plan to fingerprint, using ink

and paper, hundreds of thousands of enumerators needed for our

decennial census.

Here is my concern. The use of ink and paper to capture and

process fingerprints is highly prone to error and rejection. I have

heard up to 40 percent of all fingerprints taken by trained personnel can be rejected, causing delays and, most importantly, the inability to comply with Federal legislation governing successful passage of an FBI background investigation.

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Has the Bureau considered using electronic fingerprinting as an

alternate method to capture the fingerprints for processing and

comply with the law?

Dr. GROVES. Well, I wasn’t there, obviously, Mr. Chairman, but

I have been briefed on a review. There was, indeed—and I could

get you a report on this, if you want—an attempt to evaluate the

purchase of electronic measurement devices. The costs of those for

an effort as massive of the hiring that we are going through was

judged to be not worth the quality enhancement or the speed enhancement.

And so, in a way, the address canvassing operation was a test

of this paper-based fingerprinting, and let’s evaluate the test. So I

am told, going into this, instead of the 40 percent figure you just

cited about rejects, we were anticipating about 30 percent. The actual number was 22 percent. And when we diagnosed, so why

should we put up with 22 percent? Can we do better? There are

people working on improved training for the people taking the fingerprints on this—two separate cards are taken per person—to see

if we can get better at that.

The other part of the cost has to do with FBI processing of these

things. So we’re concerned, can the FBI handle the big load—we

are going to have a lot of fingerprints going through the FBI process—in a timely fashion in order to be compliant with the law? And

we are doing a big load test on that in a few weeks, mid-October,

to basically simulate the full workload of the Census

Fingerprintings. We are going to shove that much through the system and then get an FBI judgment that they can or cannot come

through on that. So we’ll see mid-October.

Mr. CLAY. Well, Director Groves, please share with this committee your documentation and comparisons of the fingerprinting. Because I have contrary information that says it would be a savings

of $10 million to $20 million on the part of the Bureau if you used

electronic fingerprints. So let’s share the documentation with this

subcommittee.

Dr. GROVES. Yeah, yeah, no, I’d be happy to do that. And, in fact,

if you have some really much, much cheaper method that has the

quality we are after, I would love to hear about it.

Mr. CLAY. Yeah, well, let’s do some comparison shopping

here——

Dr. GROVES. OK. Great, great.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. CLAY [continuing]. And determine if we can save the taxpayers some money.

In response to Mr. McHenry’s inquiry about future hearings, we

do plan on inviting the Director back for updates, as well as other

subject matter, in particular for a future hearing. It’s my understanding that there has been a political thawing about sampling

that we may need to explore in a bipartisan manner. So that could

be a future hearing, too.

Mr. MCHENRY. Are you smiling as you say that?

Mr. CLAY. Yes, I am, but not facetiously.

Let me now call the two additional witnesses up to the table.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, could I have about 5 minutes just to ask a couple? Mr. McHenry said we were going to take

15 minutes a side, and I think he took 10.

Mr. CLAY. That was not the format, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll give

you 5 minutes.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. OK. If you will do that, Mr. Chairman——

Mr. CLAY. You are going to take 5 of his.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, if you don’t mind me doing that.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Westmoreland, you may proceed.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you. And just a couple quick comments, Mr. Chairman.

But, Dr. Groves, I want to tell you that I appreciate your sincerity in the meetings that we’ve had. I think you are very sincere

about giving the American people the best count possible. And, Mr.

Jackson, the same thing in the meetings that we have had.

And you were talking about the people under you. I think people

that work for somebody or work for a corporate group look at the

sincerity of the people that are leading them and want to do that

same type job. So I commend you for that.

Dr. GROVES. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And I also want to say that you are exactly

right on the credibility. We have to make sure that the public understands that we are going to count everybody, we are going to

do the best job that we can counting everybody.

I want to encourage you to look at letting Members of Congress

do some PSAs telling people to fill out their form. Every meeting

I have now, I tell people, ‘‘Please fill out your census and send it

in. And if you do that, we’ll have a good, accurate count.’’

Dr. GROVES. And we’ll save the taxpayer money.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And we’ll save the taxpayers money. That’s

correct.

A quick question. I know that earlier this month our staffs were

briefed by the Census Bureau on the address canvassing, as Mr.

McHenry mentioned. They said that the handhelds worked well. Do

you agree with that, I mean, from everything that you have heard?

Dr. GROVES. The way I see it is that they worked well enough

for that task. You know, we trimmed the task a little. We took the

large blocks and we didn’t use the handhelds for the large blocks,

because we knew they were having trouble with the large blocks.

So I think the way I’d prefer to think of it: The way we used

them, they worked well.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. OK. Well, I know that they were used for

this GPS, you know, the address. And what’s the problem—if they

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work well in the environment that you say, could they—there’s no

way they could have been used to get the responses for these 10

questions of people that go out for a nonresponse followup?

Because I know that, at least in the estimations, I believe, in the

nonresponse followup, if we were able to use these handhelds, it

would have saved a little over $1 billion of taxpayer money.

Dr. GROVES. No, I see the appeal of this. No, I’m with you on the

logic of your question. And the disappointing answer, I think, is

that, although they were useful for address canvassing, the questionnaire use of those things is another software leap, and they

weren’t ready for that. And, indeed, the replanning was motivated

by that knowledge. So that programming was stopped. You know,

they are just not ready for that.

They are also not the kind of GPS devices that you and I may

have in our car that say, you know, ‘‘turn left’’ and so on. They

allow us to put spots on maps and code those coordinates, but they

are not really navigational devices in the way that you could imagine being used in nonresponse followup.

And then the killer final point is there aren’t enough of them.

Even if those two things were solved that I just mentioned, we

don’t have enough of these devices to run nonresponse followup if

we wanted to.

So, you know, it is regrettable, but it is a matter of fact that

using those in nonresponse followup is not a prudent thing.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And that’s a real shame, because taxpayers

spent a lot of money buying those things. And it would have been

great if they could have been used for the nonresponse followup

and those simple answers.

But, with that, Mr. Chairman, if I have any time left, I will yield

that to Mr. McHenry. If not, thank you for the time.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Westmoreland.

Now we will proceed under the normal operations of the hearing

and ask the two witnesses to come forward. We will now—and as

I stated earlier and without objection, the Chair and ranking minority member will have 5 minutes to make opening statements,

followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any

other Member who seeks recognition. And without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a written

statement of extraneous material for the record.

I will now introduce the rest of our panel. We have heard from

Dr. Groves, who I have already introduced.

Our next witness will be Judith J. Gordon, who has served in Executive Leadership positions within the Office of Inspector General

since 1994 and became responsible for audit and evaluation in

June 2008. In her current position, she is responsible for the Audit,

Evaluation, and Oversight of Department of Commerce Program,

Organization, Operations, and Management, as well as external activities funded by the Commerce through contracts or financial assistance such as loan, grants, and cooperative agreements.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Gordon served 14 years as Assistant Inspector General for Systems Evaluation, where she led a

staff responsible for the Review and Oversight of Commerce Information Technology Systems, Policies, Programs, and Contracts. Ms.

Gordon also served as the Director of OIG Systems Evaluation DiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:45 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\54383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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vision from 1991 to 1994. Ms. Gordon received a B.A. in economics

and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan and completed the course work for the doctoral program in economics at American University.

Our third witness will be Mr. Jeff Tarakajian—I got it right—

Tarakajian, executive VP of DraftFCB, the prior contractor of the

2010 census integrated communications campaign.

I want to welcome our entire panel to this hearing; and, as is the

policy of the committee, we swear in all witnesses. Would you

please stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. You may be seated, and let the record reflect that all 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 will indicate it is time to sum up, and the

red light will indicate that your time has expired.

Dr. Groves, do you have any additional statements you want to

make at this time?

Dr. GROVES. I am happy to hear the testimony of my colleagues.

Mr. CLAY. That will be good.

Ms. Gordon, you may proceed with your opening statement.

STATEMENTS OF JUDITH J. GORDON, PRINCIPAL ASSISTANT

INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDIT AND EVALUATION, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE; AND JEFF TARAKAJIAN,

CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DRAFTFCB

STATEMENT OF JUDITH J. GORDON

Ms. GORDON. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry——

Mr. CLAY. Make sure your mic is on. Push that button. There

you go. Thank you.

Ms. GORDON. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and

members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Census Bureau’s management of next year’s——

Mr. CLAY. Ms. Gordon, would you pull the mic closer to you?

There you go.

Ms. GORDON [continuing]. Of next year’s decennial census and

communications campaign. We recognize the challenges faced by

the Bureau in this enormous yet critical task. Oversight of the

2010 census has been a top priority of the Office of Inspector General.

Today, I will focus my remarks on three areas: one, the significant issues we have identified over the past decade in key Census

operations; two, the problems discussed in our first quarterly report to Congress last month; and, three, our ongoing review of the

Bureau’s communications campaign and partnership program.

Over the past decade, we have found critical shortcomings in

such areas as contracting, address lists, systems development, and

enumerating hard-to-count populations. These challenges remain to

this day. Our audit of award fee and contract type on field data collection automation resulted in several improvements when the contract was renegotiated. This occurred after the well-publicized deciVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:45 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\54383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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sion to abandon use of handheld computers for nonresponse followup.

We have focused considerable attention on address canvassing,

as this is key to a successful census. In our observations nationwide, we found a central procedure is not followed. The Bureau

quickly directed the field to correct the problem, but at that point

over half of the operation had been completed.

Quality control is critical to identifying and correcting errors

when address listers do not follow procedures. While our review is

not yet complete, we found that quality control employees were unable to make certain address list corrections when needed.

Our first quarterly report to Congress examined the Bureau’s

program management limitations. While risk management has improved over census 2000, specific limitations in program management systems and data hamper its ability to plan and manage the

census. Examples include the lack of integrated objective measures

of cost schedule and progress, unreliable cost estimates, and late

risk management activities.

Further, Census stopped reporting the risks associated with its

handheld computers as a key issue in its monthly status reports to

Congress, the Department, and OMB, even though the issue had

not been resolved. This lack of transparency cast doubt on overall

reporting accuracy.

Finally, we have been monitoring the Bureau’s communications

campaign, including its contract as well as the partnership program. While we continue to assess the challenges, the Bureau’s

management appears to be going well. We have, however, noted

some delays in getting promotional materials to local offices.

The partnership program is a related component of the commu- nications campaign. Census used $120 million in Recovery Act

funding to hire an additional 2,000 individuals to increase partnerships in hard-to-count communities. We will be looking at how well

Census uses its vastly increased partnership staff.

In conclusion, the Bureau is taking positive steps to increase the

mail response rate and participation of hard-to-count populations.

With the limitations in its project management systems, Census

faces significant challenges in assessing progress and forecasting

cost and schedule overruns for the duration of the decennial. Major

areas we intend to watch going forward include the quality of the

master address file, the use of the communications campaign and

partnership staff, the Bureau’s progress in developing automation

for nonresponse followup on a highly compressed schedule and

components of the enumeration process.

Mr. Chairman, this completes my summary; and I would be

happy to respond to questions.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Gordon. You—don’t worry about the

clock. You did fine. You did well. You were under 5 minutes.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Mr. Tarakajian, you are next.

STATEMENT OF JEFF TARAKAJIAN

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McHenry,

members of the subcommittee, Team Census 2010 thanks you for

the opportunity to speak with you today about the integrated communications campaign for the 2010 census.

I am joined today by a colleague at DraftFCB, Mark Hall, but I

also want to recognize the contributions of our subcontractor partners, without whom this campaign would be impossible to execute.

A few of them are GlobalHue, D Exposito, GlobalHue Latino, IW

Group, Allied Media, and G&G Advertising, who have all tirelessly

worked on behalf of the campaign.

The topic you requested for today’s testimony is Criteria for Implementation: Measurement for Success. From the very beginning

of the contract, literally all of the activities that the team has been

focused around have to do with achieving successfully the three

goals of the campaign; and, just to remind us, they are: increasing

the overall mail response, delivering an accurate census and reducing the differential undercount and, finally, encouraging cooperation with enumerators.

Everything that we are doing has begun aligned with those

goals, and everything we continue to do remains aligned. Absolutely everything we have done is research based. Our approach to

ensuring success has been to listen and learn from others and incorporate that learning into the campaign, for example, learning

from the consumer through very extensive quantitative and qualitative research.

We have had two phases of communication strategy testing, two

phases of creative concept testing. The Census Bureau’s own segmentation analysis, our Census barriers, attitudes, and motivator

studies have all contributed to a vast amount of consumer knowledge. Learning from the opinions and knowledge of stakeholders,

that of advisory committees, that of oversight, including members

of this committee, Congress, Senate, and the Department of Commerce. Learning from analyzing the 2000 census program and its

achievements. Learning from the Census Bureau itself. The fresh

perspective of new leadership at the Bureau, as well as field headquarters, regions, and local offices.

We have had extensive learning from third-party sources, and I

will just name a few of these. From Simmons Market Research,

Pew Research, Competitrack, and Yankelovich and learning from

the recent academic assessment panel report and its recommendations.

And, finally, there is the learning from each other and our own

professional experience in developing and implementing integration

communications plans.

So we will continue as a team to do whatever it takes to listen,

to learn, and incorporate into the campaign what we need to make

it successful so that when the final comprehensive evaluation of the

campaign is done by NORC, it will be apparent how the campaign

has driven the successful achievements of its goals.

Today, I am pleased to report that we remain on track to deliver

the campaign to the marketplace in January. We are on budget,

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and we thank the government for the infusion of Recovery Act

funds which, as the Director has outlined, has helped in many

ways to expand this campaign and make it more pervasive.

And also we are on track to deliver the very aggressive small

business subcontracting goals of the contract. We have just completed the second and final round of creative concept testing and

look forward this fall to finalizing all of the media buys—the up

front media buy, the national media buy, and the local media buy—

and producing all the creative and giving our stakeholders one additional chance to see work in progress materials and plans before

implementation.

So, today, we look forward to your questions, your observations,

and advice that you may have about this extraordinary effort and

are willing to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tarakajian follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for those presentations.

We will now go to the question and answer period, and we will

start with Mr. McHenry who will get 10 minutes, and each subsequent question he will get 10 minutes. Mr. McHenry, you are recognized.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for testifying. I certainly appreciate it.

The overall concerns about the communication effort I raised

with the Bureau back in July, I believe. We wrote a letter about

the contract and making sure that we have some reasonable congressional oversight over this process. I mean, it is hundreds of

millions of dollars. It has had a substantial increase and I think—

I believe rightfully so. I think we had about $175 million spent on

advertising or communications in 2000; and we are going to have

about $260,000 $270,000—I am sorry—$260 million this time

around. Is that approximately right, Dr. Groves?

Dr. GROVES. Well, prior to the Recovery Act money, the sum is closer to sort of $200 million. The $100 million infusion added to

that. So, for the advertising itself, the number of 320 or 322 is

probably the best one to use.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. So certainly we are talking about a substantial increase which, as you note in your testimony, is according to

what the Bureau thinks is necessary and proper and will have an

effect on lowering nonresponse followup, the need for a nonresponse followup.

So, you know, that was my question before. I had asked about

the DraftFCB and the GlobalHue contract, and we got back basically a quarter of what you sent back. The contract, a quarter it

of is redacted. We basically have blank sheets of paper here that

are just greyed out. And that is about 25 percent of what you sent

back; and it appears, based on some of the few words that are actually here, it is DraftFCB’s small business contracting plan.

My question is about how Congress is able to provide oversight

over this when we can’t even get a document that isn’t in full sections being redacted. Would you be willing to work with us to provide us with this information?

Dr. GROVES. As you know, Congressman, I believe the cause of

the redaction has to do with the proposer labeling as proprietary

some of the information within the proposal. Working within those

constraints, we would be happy to do whenever possible.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. And in your letter back to me, you reference

the Freedom of Information Act, which, you know, means any citizen can request this information. We have actually—Congress has

appropriated the money. We are providing oversight. And you reference the Freedom of Information Act in multiple places saying

that you have already, you know—you have released this information under the Freedom of Information Act, and you are basically

forwarding me that.

That wasn’t my request. And I can understand certain sections

being redacted of proprietary information but not 25 pages worth

of greyed-out material. I have seen intelligence reports not this

greyed out. And I am not trying to minimize this. I certainly think

it is important. But I would like to have some cooperation so we

can provide some oversight and transparency here.

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Dr. GROVES. I would be happy to talk to you about that.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. I would really appreciate that.

You have been showing every sign of willingness to work with all

interested parties, and I do appreciate your leadership. And I am

not really here to sort of beat up on you on this. I just would like

to have some knowledge beyond what was sent here. It is almost

laughable, the number of redactions we have here.

And even, furthermore, you know, our committee outlines what

we are requesting as best practices. And this is something that the

committee puts together. It is not a Republican or a Democrat

thing. But it is documents responsive to the request should not be

destroyed, modified, removed, transferred, or otherwise made inaccessible to the subcommittee. And neither the procurement integrity provisions of title 41 nor the Trade Secrets Act of title 18, section 1905, which is part of what you reference, prevent Congress

from receiving proprietary or procurement-sensitive information.

So, you know, I think providing us with that information is reasonable.

Additionally, DraftFCB and GlobalHue and their parent company and their public group have a pretty troublesome legal history. GlobalHue is accused of overbilling the Bermuda government

$1.8 million; and, among other things, it is alleged that GlobalHue

failed to keep invoices and billing records and charged commissions

of up to 181 percent on media bias. What was the process to contract with them?

Dr. GROVES. Well, Jeff may want to respond a little on the subcontracting side.

But, as I think this committee was briefed, the process by which

the original contract was led followed all of the Federal guidelines

for acquisition of these kinds of services. And there are in place,

as you know, Congressman, the kind of oversight—financial and

service delivery oversight—that is specified by Federal acquisitions.

So those things are in place.

The reference you are making I believe is to an earlier behavior

on the part of one of the subcontractors.

Mr. MCHENRY. Yes. And, also, DraftFCB lost a contract with

Wal-Mart over allegations of overbilling; and Interpublic was fined

$12 million by the FCC for accounting fraud. Mr. Tarakajian,

would you like to respond to that?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Let me answer your GlobalHue question first,

and then I will subsequently answer the other questions.

Mr. MCHENRY. Sure.

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. GlobalHue as well as all the other subcontractors who are part of this contract went through a process before we

were awarded this contract to identify their expertise, their willingness to work with us, their personnel, the backgrounds of their personnel, their skill set, their financial acumen, their past experience

working on the census campaign, which was important for a variety of the subcontractors. We took into account a whole number of

factors in putting together a list.

The other thing to realize is that there were a number of other

firms like ourselves who were in the marketplace to team up with

other subcontractors at the time. So we faced a competitive environment as well as did everybody else in that many of the subVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:45 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00186 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\54383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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contractors teamed up with other players and therefore were unwilling to team up with us or vice versa. So I want to reassure you

we did go through a very rigorous process.

The Bermuda situation is something that just came about. It was

not part of the background when this contract was awarded or

when the contract was being put together.

As for ourselves, just to set the record straight on Wal-Mart,

there was a solicitation by Wal-Mart. It came out of our Chicago

office. We run this out of our New York office. And our parent company did a thorough investigation of that, and their investigation

showed that there was no illegal activities, no improprietary activities on behalf of our company relative to the Wal-Mart contract.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. I certainly appreciate you addressing that.

I guess the question for you, in general, some of the stuff I don’t

see in the contract and one standard part is a media buying fee.

There is certainly a percentage for the purchase of media. What is

that percentage you are charging?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Actually, by contract, there is no media commission. Media is handled 100 percent on a pass-through basis. So,

therefore, the only cost connected with media buying is the actual

labor involved with making the actual buy. But there is no media

commission in the contract.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. So it is zero. OK. And there is just simply

a handling fee, in essence, for labor?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. That is correct.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. All right. OK. Well, thank you so much for

your testimony; and thank you for addressing those issues as well.

I appreciate you taking the opportunity to fully put those things to

rest. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.

Mr. Tarakajian, let me ask you about the—could you discuss

with the subcommittee the tradeoff between the cost and benefits

of paid versus earned media? Do you have any opinion about that?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Yes. Generally speaking, a key difference between paid media and earned media is that in paid media you completely control the message and you control not only the message

itself but where that message is placed, what time, etc. Earned

media is kind of the opposite. You place a message out into the

marketplace, and you try to direct it in a certain channel in the

hopes that you do end up with the message expressed the way you

would like the message to be expressed in the channels in which

you would like them to be seen.

The value of earned media is that it has credibility that paid

media does not have with target audiences because earned media

is viewed as coming from trusted voices as opposed to paid media

where the population knows that the advertiser actually pays to

have that message put into programming.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

How do you respond to members of your Academic Assessment

Panel suggesting that the grassroot efforts needs to be enhanced as

opposed to the paid television media plan? Why not use less expensive media that may be more appropriate in reaching specific

groups, especially those hard-to-count populations?

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Mr. TARAKAJIAN. One of the messages or one of the recommendations that the Academic Assessment Panel was to step back and

take a look at the division of spending, the allocation of money between paid media and the partnership efforts. And, as I think

many of you know, in the Recovery Act funds, there is an increase

to the partnership effort or rather a sizable increase to the partnership effort resulting from the Recovery Act spending. We do believe

that we are reaching the right allocation between partnership support materials, which is what our role is in this, and the paid

media spending.

Even the paid media spending is dramatically skewed toward

ethnic populations, multicultural population, the hard-to-count population. In fact, in order of magnitude, there is—approximately

where we are heading is that roughly 20 percent of the population

speaks another language other than English in terms of their consumption of media. But that is actually where close to 60 percent

of the dollars are likely to be channeled. Whereas only 40 percent

of the dollars are likely to be channeled against 80 percent of the

population that consumes media in English.

So I think the combination of partnership in activities and what

is being done in the way the paid media effort is being planned are

together surrounding the hard-to-count populations and motivating

them, hopefully, to participate.

Mr. CLAY. Will that include—will those lopsided amounts be included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money also

that you all received?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The numbers that I just quoted reflect the total

amount of the base plan plus the Recovery Act together. And what

we were able to do so far is take the Recovery Act money and skew

it disproportionately toward the ethnic, multicultural, and hard-tocount audiences to arrive at those numbers.

Mr. CLAY. You know, this is a real reversal from a couple of

years ago. I mean, when things were tighter with the Census budget and different groups started weighing in with this subcommittee,

they were all fearful that they were losing ground in the communications campaign. So you are here today to tell me that it has

been reversed in that it is now geared toward those hard-to-count

communities?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Yes. As I said—I will repeat—in fact, what I

have said, that the majority of the paid media allocation is targeted

to the ethnic in language, in culture, hard-to-count populations.

And you see that reflected really as a result of the Recovery Act

money, the increase in the number of languages in the campaign

from 14 now to 28 languages. Those kinds of things have really,

you know, enabled us to make the kind of change that a lot of our

stakeholders were urging us to do early on.

Mr. CLAY. The OIG responded that the Census Bureau has been,

in their words, diligent in monitoring the Integrated Communications Campaign, but there have been delays in delivery of initial

plan and promotional items. From your perspective, what caused

these delays and have they been eliminated and will these problems be corrected before the decennial?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. In the written testimony, I outlined where we

are as of today and where we will be shortly by the end of October

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in terms of delivery of promotional materials and items. And when

we had the meeting with the Inspector General back in April, we

talked about that deficiency and moved very aggressively with our

team to get out a lot of promotional materials into the field, which

we have done to the point where today I believe there are roughly

11 million pieces that are physical pieces, plus a lot of pieces that

are on the Web site that people can download. So there is a full

assortment of items that are out there.

In response to your question specifically about what caused the

delay and what has changed since then, I think there are a number

of factors. One is that requirements were difficult to get out of the

Bureau at the time, and we went back and forth on requirement

setting and I think landed in a place where it was very clear to us

what needed to happen. I think our team was not as fast as it

could be in addressing some of those requirement changes.

And I think, third, the review process that was then in place that

has now changed dramatically, led to the cycle time. Where we are

today is the Bureau has implemented a review process that is

much more streamlined. They have subject matter experts that are

assigned to each batch of materials, depending upon what the topic

of those materials are. And what that has done is make sure that

the right content is reviewed by the right person and we get the

kind of feedback that we need on a more timely basis.

So I think we have caught up, but we continue to push very aggressively on this front to make sure that deadlines are not missed

and that we meet the expectations in the field.

Mr. CLAY. Very good response.

And a final question for either you or Dr. Groves. What is the

Census plan to reach the single, unattached, mobile person? Is

there a nondigital system in place to reach this group in 2010?

What is the compelling message for this segment of the population?

And is there a mechanism in place to monitor the Internet in respect to the 2010 census? Either one of you.

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Let me start with your last point, the monitoring. I think Dr. Groves talked a little bit about learning about the

blogosphere and monitoring there. We have in the communications

contract a continuous tracking study that has an Internet monitor

component to it. There will be a base wave that will be done this

fall, and then we will have continuous tracking while the campaign

is in the marketplace next year.

One of the recommendations of the AAP, the Academic Assessment Panel, was to take a look at the single, unattached, mobile

segment and ensure that there is more than Internet advertising

to reach that segment. The answer is that is something that we are

looking at right now.

We had in the plan additional things. They will be exposed to television, they will be exposed to radio, they will be exposed to all

the multimedia that everybody else is. The road tour and all the

other elements will reach them. The challenge, though, is that they

tend to be, on an index basis, less exposed to those media than

many of their counterparts. So one of the things in the replanning

that we are looking at is exactly how to fine tune that plan against

that group; and when we share that with the Bureau in October,

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that can be part of what we ultimately share again with stakeholders later on this fall.

Mr. CLAY. It has to be like a high wire act to figure out how you

are going to touch this segment of the population when they know

there is an overreliance on texting, cell phones, and other new

gadgets that are coming out it seems like on a monthly basis.

Perhaps you have something to add to it, Dr. Groves. If not, I do

understand.

Dr. GROVES. I do think it is actually implied in Jeff’s point. But

on the electronic communication with this population, clearly, we

have an opportunity to engage our hundreds of thousands of partner operations. Because many of them have their own electronic

communication with their constituents, if you will. And so if we can

be smart about this so that the content we might prepare actually

migrates to their Web sites in various ways that might be an effective tool.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response.

Mr. McHenry.

Mr. MCHENRY. Yes. And, actually, it is a nice transition point.

Because, Dr. Groves, you mentioned this. The Internet measurement you mentioned in terms of the effectiveness as sort of a measurement tool afterwards to make the next census better. Can you

delve into that? Because I would like to hear some of your ideas

on ways that we can integrate this, if not this census, then in the

future.

Dr. GROVES. Well, I think the Census has a plan that must go

forward the way it is. So what we have added is really a little experimental component to answer an important but only one of the

questions that are related to looking forward in how the Internet

might be used. That is, do we as humans react to questions on a

Web questionnaire in different ways? And this is part of a much

larger research agenda that is going on around the world. There is

all sorts of work going on on how you can portray what measurement effectively so that people answer as carefully and as well as

they can. That is the focus of this particular test.

But, looking forward, I think it is safe to say and I think I—this

is a unanimous opinion in the field, that we can’t imagine a 2020

census without an Internet component. This is actually, I think, a

very easy judgment to make.

The harder judgment is how do you best integrate it, and that

is hard because you and I don’t know what the Internet of 2020

will look like. It will not look like the Internet of 2010. I think that

is a safe bet. So all of these new gismos we have will be old-fashioned by 2020.

And the wisdom that we all require I think is choosing a course

of planning and cycle testing so that we have a use of an Internet

in 2020 that is the optimal use of that Internet of 2020. This is

hard.

I think we have a wonderful vehicle at the Census Bureau now,

the American Community Survey, which could indeed be used more

or less as the space shuttle is used, to add on little experiments

throughout the decade, to inquire when a new gismo is created

within the Internet. Is that going to be useful for us to measure

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the American society one way or the other? And if we are good

about this, we can choose the right role of the Internet.

One thing that I think is important to note, the findings of survey methodological research on the world or on Internet use are

not particularly wonderful in terms of whether the response rate

increases greatly with an Internet option. It is the biggest disappointment to my profession right now. We had great hopes that

if I offered you an Internet option versus a paper questionnaire,

you would go immediately to the Internet option. People are not behaving the way we thought. This is a problem for us.

So this will not be a panacea for 2020. It should be a useful tool

and an armament of other tools. But, by itself, at least at this

point, the Internet of 2010 is not that tool.

Mr. MCHENRY. Is Internet advertising a component of the plan

as it now stands?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Internet advertising, paid Internet advertising,

social media, getting our presence on other people’s Web sites, anyway you look at it, having a strong presence on the Internet, including our own Web site, is a key component of where we are

headed.

Mr. MCHENRY. Very good. Very good.

You mentioned the American Community Survey. Can you take

a moment to explain the American Community Survey and whether or not you think it effective and important.

Dr. GROVES. Well, as you know better than most American citizens, Congressman, the American community survey had as its

seed the long form of the census. So a wonderful—as I mentioned

in my testimony, a wonderful property of the 2010 census is that

we are asking Americans to do a much shorter, simpler task than

before.

Yet, at the same time, this Congress and earlier Congresses have

passed many laws that require the measurement of certain attributes of the population in order to redistribute funds. Every

question in that roughly 69 question questionnaire has a law sitting behind it that you and your colleagues have passed, and that

is the tool that allows us to administer—allow different agencies to

administer those laws.

Now, it has one other benefit and that is for small business owners, for small town mayors, they were cheated in a way in past census designs. They had wonderfully rich data once every 10 years

but only once every 10 years. And now we are supplying those

towns and those decisionmakers at the very small levels of geography more up-to-date information. This is a wonderful, grand new

thing that the society is going to get. It is going to require a lot

of education of local people on how to use it wisely. So we have a

big education task ahead of us. But once it soaks into the society—

this is a wonderful thing for all of us.

Mr. MCHENRY. All right. Thank you for touching on that. There

has been some discussion and debate about the need for it, and I

certainly agree with you that it is preferable to the long form. I

think it—in terms of the average American’s experience and the response rates we have seen, it is going to be very fascinating, and

I am sure you are interested to see the outcome of response rates

without the long form as a——

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Dr. GROVES. It is going to be fascinating.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you for your testimony. Thank you

for addressing those two questions that are just of interest to me.

I appreciate your willingness for being here today. And thank you,

Mr. Chairman, for your leadership.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. McHenry; and let me thank

the panel for their testimony today. Again, Dr. Groves, it is so good

to have you here in this initial hearing. Believe you me, there will

be other invitations to come back; and we look forward to you coming back. We certainly look forward to the sharing of information

between the Bureau and the subcommittee on the fingerprinting

issue.

Without objection, I will submit an opening statement for the

record and any other Members’ opening statements for the record.

Without objection, the hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Patrick T. McHenry follows:]

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