Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to be here today to provide an update on the Census Bureau’s dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census and the Bureau’s readiness for carrying out the 2000 Decennial Census. The dress rehearsal, currently under way at three sites—Sacramento, CA; 11 counties in the Columbia, SC area; and Menominee County in Wisconsin, including the Menominee American Indian Reservation—is designed to demonstrate major operations, procedures, and questions that are planned for the decennial census. At your request, my statement focuses on how key census-taking operations have performed thus far during the dress rehearsal and the implications that may exist for 2000. When we last testified before Congress in March 1998, we noted that, although the Bureau had made progress in addressing some of the problems that occurred during the 1990 Census, key activities faced continuing challenges. The situation today is much the same. On the one hand, certain census activities, such as staffing the dress rehearsal operations, appear to have gone well. On the other hand, measures of other activities, such as the mail response rate, suggest that the Bureau still faces major obstacles to a cost-effective census. Moreover, while the dress rehearsal activities done thus far have demonstrated the Bureau’s general ability to execute the dress rehearsal according to its operational timetable and plan, the important outcome measure—the quality of the data collected—is not yet available. Further, the Bureau’s general ability to conduct the dress rehearsal according to its operational plan, while encouraging, is not necessarily a predictor of success in 2000. Because the dress rehearsal was performed at three sites, the capacity of regional and headquarters offices, as well as a number of essential census-taking operations, could not be fully tested under census-like conditions. is using sampling and statistical estimation methods at the Sacramento site, in accordance with its plans for a sampling census. At the South Carolina site, the Bureau’s procedures are to follow up on all nonresponding households just as it was to do nationwide in the 1990 Census. At the Menominee dress rehearsal site, the Bureau is to follow up on all nonresponding households, but it is also using sampling and statistical estimation to improve the accuracy of the population count. My comments today are based on our ongoing review of key census-taking operations that could significantly affect the cost and accuracy of the 2000 Census. They include such activities as (1) creating a complete and accurate address list, (2) obtaining a high level of public cooperation through an effective census promotion and outreach effort, (3) staffing census-taking operations with an adequate workforce, (4) processing census data accurately and using technology efficiently and effectively, and (5) carrying out field activities including both nonresponse follow-up and sampling and statistical estimation procedures. To assess these activities, we (1) made several visits to the dress rehearsal sites and the Bureau’s data capture center in Jeffersonville, IN; (2) observed key census-taking operations; (3) interviewed Bureau headquarters officials, staff from regional and local census offices, and individual enumerators and their supervisors; and (4) reviewed relevant documents and data the Bureau prepared about these operations. To obtain a local perspective on the dress rehearsal, we conducted in-person and telephone interviews with local officials at the three dress rehearsal sites on their experiences in reviewing address lists, promoting the census, and recruiting and hiring census workers. Because the dress rehearsal is still under way and more comprehensive data on the results of the dress rehearsal are not yet available, our observations today should be considered preliminary and the Bureau’s data are subject to change pending further refinements and analysis. One of our long-standing concerns has been the Bureau’s ability to build a complete and accurate address list and develop precise maps. Accurate addresses are critical for delivering questionnaires, avoiding unnecessary and expensive follow-up efforts at vacant or nonexistent residences, and establishing a universe of households for sampling and statistical estimation. Precise maps are essential for counting persons at their proper locations—the cornerstone of congressional reapportionment and redistricting. Bureau maps are also used for certain census-taking operations such as nonresponse follow-up that entails following up on households that fail to mail back a census questionnaire. To build its address list, which is known as the Master Address File (MAF), the Bureau initially planned, in part, to (1) use addresses provided by the Postal Service, (2) merge these addresses with the address file the Bureau created during the 1990 Census, (3) conduct limited checks of the accuracy of selected addresses, and (4) send the addresses to local governments and Indian tribes for verification as part of a process called Local Update of Census Addresses. However, as we reported in March 1998, the Bureau concluded in September 1997 that its reliance on postal and 1990 Census addresses to construct its 2000 Census address list would not yield a sufficiently complete and accurate list. The Bureau therefore decided that redesigned procedures were needed in order to generate a MAF for the 2000 Census that, as a whole, was 99 percent complete. Under the revised approach, after local address review, the Bureau plans to verify physically the completeness and accuracy of the address file for the 2000 Census by canvassing neighborhoods across the country. The Bureau expects the new approach will cost an additional $108.7 million. that, based on the 1995 test census results. For the 1995 test census, about 7.7 percent of the census questionnaires were reported to be undeliverable at the Oakland, California test site and 4.5 percent at the Paterson, New Jersey test site. In addition, the census maps appeared to be of uneven quality and usefulness at the dress rehearsal locations. For example, local census officials in Sacramento and South Carolina said that the census maps were inaccurate and contained a variety of errors, such as streets that were incorrectly placed and named. In both locations, problems with census maps led some enumerators to use commercially available maps rather than those supplied by the Bureau. In Menominee, because of the rural nature of the site, maps were particularly important. Houses generally lacked numbered street addresses, and, as a result, enumerators had to locate them, in part, by using maps. However, Bureau officials told us that while the quality of the Menominee maps is improving over the course of the dress rehearsal, the maps still have problems that make it difficult for enumerators to locate houses. As I noted, the Bureau recognized that it needed to revise its approach to building the census address list and to improve the quality of its map products. However, the Bureau’s revised approach to developing its address list is not without risk. Although elements of the revised approach have been used and tested in earlier censuses, the Bureau has not used or tested them together, nor in the sequence as presently designed for the 2000 Census. Furthermore, because the Bureau made the decision to change its address list development procedures in September 1997—after major dress rehearsal address list development efforts were already in place—the revised approach was not used during the dress rehearsal. As a result, it will not be known until the 2000 Census whether the Bureau’s redesigned procedures will allow it to meet its goal of a 99 percent complete address list. The Bureau is scheduled to begin its 2000 Census field canvassing address list efforts in August. We will continue to monitor the Bureau’s efforts to build the census address list. 55 percent response rate that the Bureau expected it would achieve without these efforts. The Bureau always finds that mail response rates during census tests, including the dress rehearsal, are lower than those obtained during an actual decennial census, when public awareness of the census is generally much greater. Table 1 shows the anticipated dress rehearsal mail response rates for the three sites and the rates the Bureau actually achieved. Despite the fact that the Bureau generally met its response rate goals for the dress rehearsal, significant concerns remain about the degree to which the Bureau will be able to meets its mail response goal for 2000. By way of comparison, the 1988 dress rehearsal for the 1990 Census generated mail response rates that ranged from 49 percent to 56 percent for mailout/mailback operations, and 58 percent for update/leave operations.The mail response rate to the 1990 Census was 65 percent—slightly less than the 67 percent response rate that the Bureau hopes for in 2000. More importantly, the Bureau does not currently plan to use in 2000 a key ingredient of the response rate achieved during the dress rehearsal—a second mailing. According to a Bureau official, concerns about public confusion have contributed to the Bureau’s decision not to use a second questionnaire mailing in 2000. The preliminary results of the dress rehearsal suggest that the Bureau may need to reconsider its decision. At both the South Carolina and Sacramento sites, the Bureau obtained approximately a 7-percentage point “bump” in response rates by sending a second questionnaire to all households located in mailout/mailback areas. According to a senior Bureau offical, this 7 percentage point increase represents real additions to the count and does not include duplicate submissions from households that already had responded. The Bureau traditionally has found that simply raising awareness of the census is insufficient; through its various outreach and promotion programs, the Bureau must also motivate people to return their questionnaires. The difficulty in doing this was demonstrated during the 1990 Census when the Bureau found that, although about 93 percent of the public was aware of the census, the mail response rate was only 65 percent—10 percentage points lower than the mail response rate to the 1980 Census. Today, I will highlight two of the more important components of the Bureau’s efforts to build public awareness and cooperation through its outreach and promotion campaign: paid advertising and partnerships and community outreach.