The decennial census is a constitutionally mandated enterprise critical to our nation. Census data are used to apportion congressional seats, redraw congressional districts, and help allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid to state and local governments each year. A complete count of the nation’s population is an enormous challenge requiring the successful alignment of thousands of activities, hundreds of thousands of temporary employees, and millions of forms. Indeed, over the past year, in an effort to secure a complete count, the Bureau mailed out questionnaires to about 120 million housing units for occupants to complete and mail back; hand- delivered approximately 12 million questionnaires—mostly in rural locations as well as in areas along the Gulf Coast affected by recent hurricanes—for residents to fill out and return by mail; went door-to-door collecting data from the approximately 46.6 million households that did not mail back their census forms; and conducted operations aimed at counting people in less-conventional dwellings such as migrant-worker housing, boats, tent cities, homeless shelters, nursing homes, dormitories, and prisons. In short, the decennial census is large, logistically complex, and, at a cost now estimated at around $13 billion, expensive. In developing the 2010 Census, the Bureau faced three significant internal challenges: critical IT systems had performance problems during testing, cost-estimates lacked precision, and some key operations were not tested under census-like conditions. These were some of the issues that led us to designate the 2010 Census a GAO high-risk area in 2008. Although every census has its decade-specific difficulties, sociodemographic trends such as concerns over personal privacy, more non-English speakers, and more people residing in makeshift and other nontraditional living arrangements make each decennial increasingly challenging and do not bode well for the cost-effectiveness of future counts. As shown in figure 1, the cost of enumerating each housing unit has escalated from around $16 in 1970 to around $98 in 2010, in constant 2010 dollars (an increase of over 500 percent). At the same time, the mail response rate—a key indicator of a successful census—has declined from 78 percent in 1970 to 63 percent in 2010. The mail response rate is an important figure because it determines the NRFU workload and ultimately, NRFU costs. In many ways, the Bureau has to invest substantially more resources each decade just to match the prior decennial’s response rate. In our earlier work on high-performing organizations, we noted that the federal government must confront a range of new challenges to enhance performance, ensure accountability, and position the nation for the future. Nothing less than a fundamental transformation in the people, processes, technology, and environment used by federal agencies to address public goals will be necessary to address public needs. Ultimately, however, the federal government needs to change its culture to be more results- oriented. For the Bureau, as with all federal agencies, this means ensuring, among other things, that its culture embraces results rather than outputs; follows matrixes rather than stovepipes; forms partnerships rather than protecting turf; focuses on risk management rather than risk avoidance; and takes proactive approaches rather than behaving reactively. Nationally, in terms of workload (as determined by the mail response rate) and staffing levels, the Bureau was well positioned to implement NRFU. With respect to the response rate, the Bureau expected a level of 59 percent to 65 percent. The actual mail response rate on April 19, when the Bureau initially determined the universe of houses to visit for NRFU, was just over 63 percent, well within the Bureau’s range of estimates. This translated into an initial workload of 48.6 million housing units. Achieving this response rate was an important accomplishment as the nation’s population is growing steadily larger, more diverse, and according to the Bureau, increasingly difficult to find and reluctant to participate in the census. High response rates are essential because they save taxpayer dollars. According to the Bureau, for every 1 percentage point increase in mail response in 2010, the Bureau saved $85 million that would otherwise have been spent on the follow-up efforts. According to the Bureau, it costs 42 cents to mail back each census form in a postage-paid envelope, compared with an average estimate of around $57 for field activities necessary to enumerate each housing unit in person. Moreover, mail returns tend to have better-quality data, in part because as time goes on after Census Day (April 1), people move, or may have difficulty recalling who was residing with them. As illustrated in figure 2, the Bureau met its expected response rate in all but 11 states. The highest response rate (71.7 percent) was in Minnesota, while the lowest response rate (51 percent) was in Alaska. At the same time, response rates in all but two states—Hawaii and South Carolina—as well as the District of Columbia, declined anywhere from 0.8 to 8.2 percentage points when compared to 2000, thus underscoring the difficulty the Bureau will face in the future in trying to sustain response rates. The mail response rate is important because it helps the Bureau determine the housing units that failed to mail back the census questionnaires, and thus are included in the NRFU workload. The mail response rate differs from the participation rate in that it is calculated as a percentage of all housing units in the mail-back universe, including those that are later found to be nonexistent or unoccupied. In contrast, the participation rate is the percentage of forms mailed back by households that received them and is a better measure of cooperation with the census. According to a Bureau press release dated October 21, 2010, the nation achieved a final mail participation rate of 74 percent, matching the final mail participation rate that was achieved for the 2000 Census. Compared to 2000, participation rates for 22 states and the District of Columbia, either met or exceeded their 2000 Census rate. Key factors aimed at improving the mail response rate included the mailing of an advance letter, a reminder postcard, and an aggressive marketing and outreach program. In addition, this is the first decennial census the Bureau sent a second or “replacement” questionnaire to households. Replacement questionnaires were sent to around 25 million households in census tracts that had the lowest response rates in the 2000 Census, and 10 million replacement questionnaires were sent to nonresponding households in other census tracts that had low-to- moderate response rates in 2000. With respect to staffing levels, the Bureau set a recruitment goal of nearly 3.7 million total applicants and achieved 104 percent of this goal by April 25, 2010, recruiting more than 3.8 million total applicants, almost a week prior to the start of NRFU (once the Bureau had an adequate pool of candidates for 2010, it attempted to limit the number of additional applicants, taking such steps as discontinuing the advertising of census jobs in mailed-out census materials). According to the Bureau, based on past experience, it set its recruiting goal at five times the number of persons that needed to be trained to ensure it had an ample pool of candidates in specific areas with specific skills, as well as to ensure it had a sufficient supply of enumerators during the course of its field operations. The Bureau’s approach was similar to that used for the 2000 Census despite vast differences in the economy. During the 2000 Census, the Bureau was recruiting in the midst of one of the tightest labor markets in nearly three decades. In contrast, during the 2010 Census, the Bureau was recruiting workers during a period of high unemployment. While having too few enumerators could affect the Bureau’s ability to complete NRFU on schedule, overrecruiting has its own costs. For example, there are costs associated with administering and processing the test taken at the time an individual applies for a census job, as well as a $2 charge to have a name background check run on all applicants. Overrecruiting can also be burdensome on applicants as they need to find a test site and take a test before they can be hired for a census job—a job that because the Bureau has overrecruited, may not be available. In looking forward to 2020, it will be important for the Bureau to more precisely refine its recruiting model based on lessons learned from the labor markets in both 2000 and 2010, and use this information to develop more accurate recruiting targets. It will also be important for the Bureau to adhere to recruiting goals so that additional costs are not incurred. The Bureau budgeted that NRFU would cost around $2.25 billion. However, by the end of the operation, the Bureau reported using approximately $1.59 billion, which was 29 percent lower than budgeted. The Bureau, with congressional approval, also set up a contingency fund of $574 million to cover additional expenses that could have been caused by unfavorable weather and other unforeseen events. However, in the end, contingency money was not needed to complete NRFU. While the Bureau conducted NRFU under budget, the difference between actual and expected NRFU costs also highlights the need for the Bureau to develop an accurate cost model in order to establish more credible cost estimates for 2020. In addition to NRFU, other census operations had substantial variances between their initial cost estimates and their actual costs. In our 2008 report, we noted that the Bureau had insufficient policies and procedures and inadequately trained staff for conducting high-quality cost estimation for the decennial census, and recommended that the Bureau take a variety of steps to improve the credibility and accuracy of its cost estimates, including performing sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. The Bureau generally agreed with our recommendation and is taking steps to address them. In conducting NRFU, it is important for enumerators to follow Bureau procedures for collecting complete and accurate data while keeping production on schedule so that subsequent activities can begin as planned. Timely completion of NRFU is also important because as time goes on, people move or might have difficulty remembering who was living in a household on Census Day.