As you know, Mr. Chairman, the decennial census is a critical national effort mandated by the Constitution. Census data are used to apportion seats in Congress, redraw congressional districts, allocate billions of dollars in federal assistance to state and local governments, and for numerous other public and private sector purposes. Importantly, the census is conducted against a backdrop of immutable deadlines. In order to meet legally mandated reporting requirements, census activities need to take place at specific times and in the proper sequence. For example, the group quarters validation operation, where census workers verify the location of group quarters, such as nursing homes and college dormitories, needs to be completed after the address canvassing operation. As a result, it is absolutely critical for the Bureau to stay on schedule. Figure 1 shows some dates for selected decennial events. The Bureau estimates that the 2010 Census will cost more than $14 billion over its life-cycle, making it the most expensive census in our nation’s history. According to the Bureau, the increasing cost of the census is caused in part by various societal trends—such as increasing privacy concerns, more non-English speakers, and people residing in makeshift and other nontraditional living arrangements—making it harder to find people and get them to participate in the census. Automation and IT will play a critical role in the success of the 2010 Census by supporting data collection, analysis, and dissemination. According to the Bureau’s estimates, it is spending more than $3 billion on IT acquisitions for the census. The Bureau is relying on both the acquisition of new systems and the enhancement of existing legacy systems for conducting operations for the 2010 Census. These systems are to play important roles with regard to different aspects of the process, such as providing geographic information to establish where to count, capturing and integrating census responses, supporting field operations such as address canvassing, and tabulating and publicly disseminating census data. Accurate cost estimates are essential to a successful census because they help ensure that the Bureau has adequate funds, and so that Congress, the administration, and the Bureau itself can have reliable information on which to base or advise decisions. However, as we have reported before, the Bureau has insufficient policies and procedures and inadequately trained staff for conducting high-quality cost estimation for the decennial census. The Bureau does not have cost estimation guidance and procedures in place or staff that is certified in cost estimation techniques. The Bureau is developing a new budget management tool that will support the cost estimation process beyond 2010. As part of that, the Bureau will need to establish rigorous cost estimation policies and procedures and use skilled estimators to ensure that future cost estimates are reliable and of high quality. For example, to help manage the 2010 census and contain costs, over 5 years ago we recommended that the Bureau develop a comprehensive, integrated project plan for the 2010 Census that should include the itemized, estimated costs of each component and a sensitivity analysis and an explanation of significant changes in the assumptions on which these costs were based. In response, the Bureau provided us with the 2010 Census Operations and Systems Plan, dated August 2007. This plan represented an important step forward by including operational inputs and outputs and describing linkages among operations and systems. However, that document did not include itemized cost estimates of each component or sensitivity analysis, and thus did not provide a valid baseline or range of estimates for the Bureau and Congress. The Bureau has provided annual cost updates as part of its budget submission process, but these too have lacked cost analyses to support them. As the Bureau approaches the final surge in the current decade-long decennial spending cycle, providing reliable cost estimates accompanied by sound justification, as we have recommended, will be important if Congress is to make informed decisions about the levels at which to fund the remainder of the 2010 Census. A complete and accurate list of all addresses where people live in the country is the cornerstone of a successful census because it identifies all households that are to receive a census questionnaire and serves as the control mechanism for following up with households that fail to respond. The Bureau goes to great lengths to develop a quality address list and maps, working with the U.S. Postal Service; federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; local planning organizations; the private sector; and nongovernmental entities. For example, under the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program, the Bureau is authorized to partner with state, local, and tribal governments, tapping into their knowledge of local populations and housing conditions in order to secure a more complete count. Between November 2007 and March 2008, over 8,000 state, local, and tribal governments provided approximately 8 million address updates through the LUCA program. The Bureau will send thousands of temporary census workers, known as listers, into the field to collect and verify address information and update maps on-site, including verifying address updates provided through the LUCA program. Despite the Bureau’s efforts, an inherent challenge is locating unconventional and hidden housing units, such as converted basements and attics. For example, as shown in figure 2, what appears to be a small, single-family house could contain an apartment, as suggested by its two doorbells. The Bureau has trained listers to look for extra mailboxes, utility meters, and other signs of hidden housing units and is developing training guides for 2010 to help listers locate hidden housing. Nonetheless, decisions on what is a habitable dwelling are often difficult to make—what is habitable to one worker may seem uninhabitable to another. According to Bureau estimates, approximately 1.4 million housing units were missed in the 2000 Census. If an address is not in the Bureau’s address file, its residents are less likely to be included in the census. A nationwide address canvassing operation for the 2010 Census is scheduled to begin this spring, when listers will use handheld computers for the first time to collect address data. Listers will add addresses that do not already appear on the Bureau’s list and mark for deletion any that they cannot verify according to the rules and guidance developed by the Bureau. When the handheld computers were tested during the dress rehearsal of the address canvassing operation, the devices experienced such problems as slow or inconsistent data transmission, freeze-ups, and difficulties collecting mapping coordinates. The software that managers used to review worker productivity and assign work was also troublesome. For example, management reports were unreliable because they pulled data from incorrect sources, and Bureau staff had difficulty using the work management software to reassign work. The Bureau took steps to fix these issues and, in December 2008, conducted a limited field test in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to test the functionality and usability of the handheld computer, including whether the handheld computer problems encountered earlier had been resolved. Although the Bureau’s final evaluation of the field test was due by the end of February 2009, we were not able to review it for this testimony. From our observations of the December 2008 field test and interviews with Bureau officials, the Bureau appears to have addressed many of the handheld computer performance issues, as well as the problems with the work management software, observed during the dress rehearsal. This is an important and noteworthy development. Nonetheless, more information is needed to determine the Bureau’s overall readiness for address canvassing as the field test was not an end- to-end systems evaluation, did not validate all address canvassing requirements, such as training and help desk support, and did not include urban areas. Additionally, the scale of the field test was a fraction of that of the address canvassing operation. The Bureau was to conduct a review of the readiness of the handheld computers in January 2009 but has not yet reported the results of that review. Finally, the Bureau’s actual workload for address canvassing—about 144.7 million addresses—is 11 million addresses more than the Bureau had planned for, leaving the Bureau with too few handheld computers to complete the workload in the time originally scheduled. In response, the Bureau will be extending the amount of time listers will be working in the field in affected areas, although not extending the end date of the operation, to compensate for the larger workload. During the dress rehearsal, listers also experienced problems when collecting address data for large blocks having more than 1,000 housing units. According to the Bureau, the handheld computer did not have the capacity to efficiently collect data for large blocks. The Bureau has taken steps to mitigate this problem. Specifically, in January 2009, the Bureau began using laptop computers and software already used in other operations to canvass the 2,086 blocks it identified as large blocks, and by the end of February 2009, the Bureau had completed approximately 80 percent of large-block canvassing. In February 2009 we observed large- block canvassing in Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C. From our preliminary observations, the laptops appear to work well, and listers reported their training was satisfactory. We are in the process of discussing these and other observations with the Bureau. The Bureau’s largest and most costly field operation is nonresponse follow-up. The Bureau estimates that it will employ over 600,000 temporary workers to collect data from about 47 million nonresponding households over the course of 10 weeks in 2010. On April 3, 2008, the Bureau announced that it would no longer use handheld computers for nonresponse follow-up and would instead change to a paper-based nonresponse follow-up operation. According to the Bureau, this change added between $2.2 billion to $3 billion to the total cost of the census. In May 2008, the Bureau issued a plan that covered major components of the paper-based nonresponse follow-up. Bureau officials said that they are developing a more detailed plan that would describe 2010 nonresponse follow-up operations and systems, workflow, major milestones, and roles and responsibilities of different census divisions.