The decennial census is the nation’s largest, most complex survey. In April 2009, address canvassing—a field operation for verifying and correcting addresses for all households and street features contained on decennial maps—will begin. One year later, the Bureau will mail census questionnaires to the majority of the population in anticipation of Census Day, April 1, 2010. Those households who do not respond will be contacted by field staff through the NRFU operation to determine the number of people living in the house on Census Day, among other information. In addition to address canvassing and NRFU, the Bureau conducts other operations, for example, to gather data from residents from group quarters, such as prisons or college dormitories. The Bureau also employs different enumeration methods in certain settings, such as remote Alaska enumeration, in which people living in inaccessible communities must be contacted in January 2010 in anticipation of the spring thaw which makes travel difficult, or update/enumerate, a data collection method involving personal interviews, used in communities where many housing units may not have typical house number-street name mailing addresses. Further, the efforts of state and local government are enlisted to obtain a more complete address file through the LUCA program. The census is also conducted against a backdrop of immutable deadlines, and the census’s elaborate chain of interrelated pre- and post-Census Day activities is predicated upon those dates. The Secretary of Commerce is legally required to (1) conduct the census on April 1 of the decennial year, (2) report the state population counts to the President for purposes of congressional apportionment by December 31 of the decennial year, and (3) send population tabulations to the states for purposes of redistricting no later than 1 year after the April 1 census date. To meet these mandated reporting requirements, census activities must occur at specific times and in the proper sequence. The table below shows some dates for selected, key decennial activities. The Bureau estimates that the 2010 Census will cost $11.3 billion over its life-cycle, making it the most expensive in the nation’s history. While some cost growth is expected, partly because the number of housing units has increased, the estimated cost escalation has far exceeded the housing unit increase. The Bureau estimates that the number of housing units for the 2010 Census will increase by 10 percent over 2000 Census levels, but the average 2010 cost to enumerate a housing unit is expected to increase by about 29 percent from 2000 levels (from $56 to $72) (see fig. 1). As the Bureau plans for 2010, maintaining cost effectiveness will be one of the single greatest challenges confronting the agency. According to the Bureau, the increasing cost of the census is caused 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. The Bureau has reengineered the decennial census, including implementing new initiatives aimed at increasing the response rate. Furthermore, the Bureau also plans to begin to implement its outreach and communications campaign, an effort used in the 2000 Census that was designed to increase awareness and encourage individuals to respond to the census questionnaire. Increasing the decennial’s response rate can result in significant savings because the Bureau can reduce the staffing and costs related to NRFU, as well as yield more complete and accurate data. According to the Bureau, for every one-percentage point increase in the response rate, the Bureau will be able to save $75 million. The Bureau plans to increase response rate by several means, including conducting a short-form-only census. The Bureau is able to do this because in 1996 the Bureau began efforts to replace the decennial long form with the American Community Survey. Since 1970, the overall mail response rate to the decennial census has been declining steadily, in part, because of the burden of responding to the long form, which was sent to a sample of respondents. In the 1980 Census, the overall mail response rate was 75 percent, 3 percentage points lower than it was in the 1970 Census. In the 1990 census, the mail response rate dropped to 65 percent but in 2000 appeared to be leveling off at about 64 percent. In the 2000 Census when comparing the short form to the long form the Bureau found the short form response rate of 66.4 percent was 12.5 percentage points higher that the long form response rate of 53.9 percent. While the difference between the long and short form response rates are significant, the Bureau in its initial assumption for the 2010 Census predicted that conducting a short-form-only census will yield only a 1-percent increase in the overall mail response rate. A targeted second mailing to households that fail to respond to the initial census questionnaire can increase the ultimate response rate. According to Bureau studies, sending a second questionnaire could yield a gain in overall response of 7 to 10 percentage points from non-responding households, thus potentially saving the Bureau between $525 million to $700 million dollars (given that every 1 percentage point increase in response may save $75 million). In reports, we have highlighted that a targeted second mailing could boost the mail response rate, which in turn would result in considerable savings by reducing the number of costly personal visits enumerators would need to make to nonresponding households. The Bureau has never before included this operation as part of a decennial census and over the decade has been testing its feasibility. A targeted second mailing was a part of 2006 test and boosted the response rate by 8.8 percent at the Austin, Texas test site. According to Bureau officials targeted second mailing will be a part of the 2010 Census design. For the 2010 Census the Bureau also intends to increase response rates by undertaking a public awareness campaign as it did in the previous census. In the 2000 Census that effort was comprised of two major activities: conducting the first-ever paid advertising campaign aimed at increasing the mail response rate, including the historically undercounted populations, and leveraging the value of local knowledge by building 140,000 partnerships at every level including state, local , and tribal governments; community- based organizations; and the media and private-sector organizations to elicit public participation in the census. In 2001 we reported that for the 2000 Census, it appeared that encouraging people to respond to the census questionnaire was successful, in part due to the Bureau’s partnership efforts. For example, according to the Bureau, it achieved an initial mail response rate of about 64 percent, 3 percentage points higher that it had anticipated when planning for NRFU. This was a noteworthy accomplishment and, as a result, the Bureau had over 3 million fewer housing units to follow-up with than it had initially planned. The Bureau will soon begin its outreach and communication effort for 2010. The Bureau plans to award the communications contract in August 2007 and will begin hiring partnership specialists at headquarters starting in fiscal year 2008. The MCD is a keystone to the reengineered census. It allows the Bureau to automate operations and eliminate the need to print millions of paper questionnaires and maps used by census workers to conduct address canvassing and NRFU, as well as assisting to manage field staff’s payroll. The benefits of using the MCD were tested in the 2004 and 2006 tests. According to the Bureau, during the 2004 Census Test, the MCD allowed the Bureau to successfully remove over 7,000 late mail returns from enumerators’ assignments, reducing the total NRFU workload by nearly 6 percent. The ability to remove late mail returns from the Bureau’s NRFU workload reduces costs, because census field workers no longer need to make expensive follow-up visits to households that return their questionnaire after the mail-back deadline. If the Bureau had possessed this capability during the 2000 Census, it could have eliminated the need to visit nearly 773,000 late-responding households and saved an estimated $22 million (based on our estimate that a 1-percentage-point increase in workload could add at least $34 million in direct salary, benefits, and travel costs to the price tag of NRFU). However, the Bureau’s ability to collect and transmit data using the MCD is not fully tested and, at this point, constitutes a risk to the cost-effective implementation of the 2010 Census. During the 2004 test of NRFU and the 2006 test of address canvassing, the MCDs experienced significant reliability problems. For example, during the 2004 Census Test, the MCDs experienced transmission problems, memory overloads, and difficulties with a mapping feature—all of which added inefficiencies to the NRFU operation. Moreover, during the 2006 test, the MCD’s global positioning system (GPS) receiver, a satellite-based navigational system to help workers locate street addresses and collect coordinates for each structure in their assignment area, was also unreliable. Bureau officials believe the MCD’s performance problems will be addressed through a contract awarded on March 30, 2006, to develop a new MCD. A prototype of the MCD has been developed and delivered by the contractor for use in the 2008 Dress Rehearsal. However, operational testing of the MCD will not occur until May 2007, when address canvassing for the 2008 Dress Rehearsal occurs, and if problems do emerge, little time will be left to develop, test, and incorporate refinements. In our May 2006 report, we highlighted the tight time frames to develop the MCD and recommended that systems being developed or provided by contractors for the 2010 Census—including the MCD—be fully functional and ready to be assessed as part of the 2008 Dress Rehearsal. We are currently reviewing the cost, schedule and performance status of the contract for the MCDs. We plan to visit the dress rehearsal sites to determine the functionality of the devices to collect and transmit data.