[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE 2010 CENSUS: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CENSUS BUREAU'S PREPAREDNESS
=======================================================================
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
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 25, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-90
__________
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
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62-943 WASHINGTON : 2011
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
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
JUDY CHU, California
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
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
Columbia JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
JUDY CHU, California
Darryl Piggee, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 25, 2010................................... 1
Statement of:
Jackson, Arnold, Associate Director, U.S. Census Bureau;
Robert Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, Government
Accountability Office; and Judy Gordon, Associate Deputy
Inspector General, Department of Commerce.................. 4
Goldenkoff, Robert....................................... 18
Gordon, Judy............................................. 52
Jackson, Arnold.......................................... 4
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
Goldenkoff, Robert, Director, Strategic Issues, Government
Accountability Office, prepared statement of............... 20
Gordon, Judy, Associate Deputy Inspector General, Department
of Commerce, prepared statement of......................... 54
Jackson, Arnold, Associate Director, U.S. Census Bureau,
prepared statement of...................................... 7
THE 2010 CENSUS: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CENSUS BUREAU'S PREPAREDNESS
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010
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 2:10 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Clay, Driehaus, Cuellar, Chu, and
McHenry.
Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Jean
Gosa, clerk; Yvette Cravins, counsel; Anthony Clark,
professional staff member; Charisma Williams, staff assistant;
John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director; and Adam Fromm,
minority chief clerk and Member liaison.
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: An Assessment of the Census Bureau's
Preparedness.'' Today's hearing, as the title indicates, will
examine the improvements the Census Bureau has made in its
operations and systems leading up to the 2010 enumeration. We
will further examine those specific IT systems and budget
uncertainties which cause GAO to categorize the Bureau's
efforts as high risk. Today's dialog should lead to more
certainty and knowledge of the mitigation strategies for 2010
census challenges.
We all have one goal in mind, a true, accurate reflection
of our country. I appreciate Dr. Groves' leadership and
efforts.
We have with us today distinguished colleagues who will be
joining us who have been asked to participate in this hearing.
Without objection, the chairman 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.
Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5
legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous
material for the record.
The purpose of today's hearing is to complete the census
cycle. We began this journey many hearings ago. This
subcommittee has visited the compilation of the Master Address
File, known as LUCA, and its intricacies. We examined the
external challenges of counting our country and the
consequences of undercounts. We studied Group Quarter
Validation and Complete Count Committees. We addressed
fingerprinting and the hiring of Census workers. We have
further assessed the advertising campaign to reach our hardest-
to-count populations. So today's efforts must now focus on the
Bureau itself, with an assessment of its preparedness to
complete the 2010 task.
First on our panel, we will hear from Mr. Arnold Jackson,
Associate Director of the Census Bureau.
Welcome.
Next, we will hear from Mr. Robert Goldenkoff, Director of
Strategic Issues at the Government Accountability Office.
Thank you for being here.
And our final panelist is Ms. Judy Gordon, Associate Deputy
Inspector at the Department of Commerce.
This panel is well suited to answer all questions and
provide updates on the Bureau's preparedness. We look forward
to their insight into this effort, and I thank all of the
witnesses for appearing today and look forward to their
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
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Mr. Clay. At this time, I will now yield to any Member who
has an opening statement.
Ms. Chu, would you have an opening? No, you're fine.
How about Mr. Cuellar? Would you have a--no.
All right. Then we will take testimony now.
Mr. Jackson, we will start with you, and--we will hear
first from you, Mr. Jackson, and second from Mr. Goldenkoff and
finally from Ms. Gordon.
It is the policy of this committee to swear in all
witnesses before they testify.
[Witnesses sworn.]
STATEMENTS OF ARNOLD JACKSON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS
BUREAU; ROBERT GOLDENKOFF, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES,
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND JUDY GORDON, ASSOCIATE
DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
STATEMENT OF ARNOLD JACKSON
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Chairman Clay, Ranking Member
McHenry, members of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to
provide an operational update, including the status of the
Paper-Based Operations Control System of the 2010 decennial
census.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, we are underway, the census is
ongoing and proceeding, and we are on a path to a successful
2010 census. The efforts of the previous years are paying off,
including the support of this subcommittee and committee, and
our work with stakeholders are now paying dividends.
A complete and accurate census is a complex endeavor.
However, the finely tuned strategies we have to count every
person in this country are paying off. All of these efforts,
from census operations to promotion, are grounded in thorough
research, extensive coordination and preparation, and local
knowledge.
The 2010 census enumeration actually began in Noorvik, AK,
on January 25th. In this small village, which piques the
interest and imagination of the country each decade, the
resulting news generated interest from over 80 million people,
a great introduction for the 2010 census.
We have also conducted an operation known as Group Quarters
Advance Visit, which facilitates the process of counting
residents in group quarters. Census workers visited more than
270,000 group quarters locations to plan for the group quarters
enumeration.
We have started an enumeration of--an enumeration activity,
known as Update/Leave, where we actually go to addresses where
the address may not represent the actual location of the
housing unit.
We are doing Update/Enumerate, which began on March 22nd
and ends May 29th. Update/Enumerate is primarily used in areas
with seasonal housing; therefore, a high number of vacants,
American Indian areas, and the colonias in South Texas.
The vast majority of housing units, however, more than 120
million, received their questionnaires in the mail last week.
Mailout/Mailback for the 2010 census includes an advance
letter, the questionnaire and a reminder postcard; and for the
first time, we will send a replacement questionnaire to about
25 million households in census tracts where we anticipate a
low response rate. This will be done on April 3rd.
The staged efforts are intended to encourage participation.
We have a program that is available on our Web site, known as
Take 10 Challenge. It is a challenge that we have initiated to
encourage some friendly competition between communities to
compare their response participation rates to each other. As
you know, participation is the foundation of an accurate and
complete census, but that is not all.
We also have Telephone Questionnaire Assistance and an
Integrated Communications program. The goal of the Telephone
Questionnaire Assistance is to quickly provide assistance
whether it is answering a question, sending a Language
Assistance Guide or sending a replacement questionnaire to call
us. Further, we have 30,000 Questionnaire Assistance Centers
that are now open where respondents can get help filling out a
Census form.
But of course, as you know and as we have testified and as
our director has testified recently, the cornerstone of the
2010 census promotional effort is the Communications program,
which includes both advertising and partnerships. The campaign
has proven successful, and we are experiencing high levels of
interest and indications of intent to participate in the
census.
As you know, by increasing the response rate, we can
dramatically affect the costs and effectiveness of our
nonresponse operations. In a matter of a few weeks, we will be
prepared to send as many as 700,000 temporary workers to the
field to enumerate between 47 million and 55 million housing
units.
While it is important to note that we are much better
prepared than we were in any previous census, we are not
without concerns. We continue to manage daily the risk of
instability and the limited functionality of our Paper-Based
Operations Control System and of our Decennial Applicant,
Personnel and Payroll System.
The Census Bureau undertook the development of the Paper-
Based Operations Control System as a high-risk alternative in
2008. The compressed PBOCS development schedule has resulted in
abbreviated testing cycles which occur much closer to
operations than we would have preferred. That, in turn, has led
to a higher number of defects than we would have expected.
However, we are prioritizing them as we move toward operations.
Workarounds, such as staggering start times, sharing printing
resources and other such alternatives, are allowing us choices
and tradeoffs to ensure successful field operations despite
less than perfect IT systems.
I am managing these risks daily, and our outlook is
improving. We have recently boasted both the Paper-Based
Operations Control System and the DAPPS system infrastructure
and technical support.
The Census Bureau remains cautiously optimistic, and I am
personally encouraged by recent progress and by the dedication
of staff and contractors. In the last couple of weeks, not only
have I overseen the installation of new hardware and witnessed
a decreasing number of defects, but we have been able to slowly
increase user capacity--all indications that, day by day, this
system is becoming mature. PBOCS is functioning and currently
supporting our field operations.
Over the next several months, hundreds of important tasks
will be completed, and your continued support is crucial to a
successful census. Again, I thank the subcommittee for this
opportunity, and I am more than happy to answer your questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Mr. Jackson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]
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Mr. Clay. Mr. Goldenkoff, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF
Mr. Goldenkoff. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
be here today to provide an update on the Census Bureau's
readiness for the 2010 enumeration. With 1 week remaining until
census day, the Nation has entered one of the most crucial time
periods in the decade-long census life cycle.
Earlier this month, the Bureau mailed out questionnaires to
around 120 million households. In the coming weeks, the Bureau
will launch additional operations aimed at enumerating certain
hard-to-count populations as well as the estimated 50 million
households that fail to mail back their Census forms. The
success of these operations will have a major impact on the
accuracy of the census as well as its ultimate cost, now
estimated at around $14.7 billion.
As requested, I will update the subcommittee on the state
of the census, paying particular attention to, first, the
reliability of key IT systems and, second, the extent to which
critical enumeration activities are on track.
Overall, the Bureau's readiness for a successful head-count
is mixed. It is deeply troubling that, at this late date, two
critical IT systems have not yet demonstrated their ability to
function reliably under full operational loads. The performance
problems plaguing these two systems represent the most
significant threat to the cost and the quality of the
enumeration.
Specifically, the Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll
System [DAPPS], the automated system the Bureau is using to
process applicants and handle the payroll of the Bureau's
massive temporary labor force--needed to be fully functional
under a heavy load, by mid-March. However, the system had
limited capacity and was sluggish. These shortcomings occurred
despite the fact that 100,000 temporary employees were on
board, far below the roughly 600,000 employees that will be
working when nonresponse followup is in full swing in a few
weeks.
As of March 22nd, Bureau officials stated that they had
taken steps to improve DAPPS' performance, including upgrading
the system's software and installing additional hardware. More
will be known about the success of these fixes in the coming
days.
The Bureau also needs to resolve ongoing problems with the
workflow management system it will use to administer its field
operations. Although the first release of this system was
deployed for early field activities in January and certain
components of the second release were deployed in February,
both releases have known defects, including limited
functionality, slow performance, and problems generating
certain progress and performance reports. The Bureau also
restricted the number of users in each local Census office due
to capacity limitations.
What's more, the component of the second release that will
be used to manage nonresponse followup, the largest Census
field operation, is still being tested and is scheduled to be
released in mid-April. This is about 3 weeks later than planned
and barely ahead of when nonresponse followup is scheduled to
begin in early May. As a result, little time will be left to
resolve any problems identified during testing.
Other functions are faring better. Key enumeration
activities are generally on track, and some activities aimed at
improving the participation of hard-to-count groups are more
robust compared to similar efforts during the 2000 census.
For example, the Bureau has launched an aggressive outreach
and promotion effort. Key differences from 2000 include
increased staffing for the Bureau's partnership program,
targeted paid advertising based on market and attitudinal
research, and a contingency fund to address unexpected events.
Moreover, to improve the participation of transient
seasonal farm workers and others at risk of being missed by the
census, the Bureau launched its Be Counted program earlier this
month. This effort makes forms available in around 40,000
locations across the country, such as libraries and community
centers.
Moving forward, it will be important for the Bureau to
quickly identify the problems affecting key IT systems and test
solutions. Further, given the complexity of the census and the
likelihood that other glitches might arise, it will be
important for the Bureau to stay on schedule, monitor
operations and have plans and personnel in place to quickly
address operational issues.
These operational considerations aside, I want to stress
that the Census Bureau cannot secure a complete count on its
own. The public must also fulfill its civic duty to return
their questionnaires in a timely manner. According to the
Bureau, each percentage point increase in the mail response
rate saves taxpayers around $85 million and yields more
accurate data.
The bottom line is that the success of the 2010 census is
now, to a large degree, in the hands of the Nation's residents.
Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, this concludes my
remarks, and I will be happy to answer any questions that you
or other members of the subcommittee might have.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Mr. Goldenkoff.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff follows:]
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Mr. Clay. Ms. Gordon, you're up for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JUDITH J. GORDON
Ms. Gordon. Thank you.
Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and members of the
subcommittee, we are pleased to be here today to share our
perspectives on the Census Bureau's readiness for this year's
decennial count. As my colleagues on the panel have noted, the
census is already in high gear, with more than 100 million
residents receiving Census forms last week. However, key
information technology systems continue to experience
performance and functionality shortfalls, and these systems can
affect the ultimate schedule, cost, and success of the census.
My statement today will cover three areas: first, the
systems issues and their risk to nonresponse followup [NRFU];
second, the importance of monitoring NRFU costs; and third,
some initial observations from our field work.
Critical to the success of NRFU is the Paper-Based
Operations Control System [PBOCS]. This system is essential to
handling assignments to enumerators, tracking questionnaires
and reporting on the status of operations. PBOCS development
has been compressed to meet the schedule. The inevitable impact
of this ``just in time'' approach is that certain errors are
not being found until the system is in actual operation, and
not all capabilities are implemented.
PBOCS has suffered from slow performance and continues to
experience complete system outages. An outage earlier this week
lasted an entire day. A similar outage during the large NRFU
operation would be particularly serious.
The Decennial Applicant, Personnel and Payroll System
[DAPPS], has experienced similar performance limitations and
operational impacts. DAPPS is critical to recruiting, managing,
and paying the enormous temporary Census work force.
To allow for installation and testing of improvements,
local Census office systems have been shut down at night and on
weekends. This prevents Census from adding more shifts to catch
up on work that has fallen behind schedule. Census engineers
and operational managers are aggressively attacking the system
issues. Nevertheless, Census will have to rely on workarounds
to compensate for system limitations. Workarounds must be fully
tested and clearly explained to minimize further disruptions.
Turning to cost and cost containment, it will be especially
important for Census to monitor and control NRFU costs. Address
canvassing went 25 percent over its budget, largely due to
overspending on wages and mileage reimbursements to temporary
address listers. NRFU is much bigger, so any cost overruns will
be much more expensive.
The ability to produce valid budget estimates is essential
to cost containment. Wide budget variances among local Census
offices in address canvassing, from less than 1 percent to over
800 percent, indicate significant weaknesses in the Bureau's
budget estimation capability and uncertainty in the decennial
cost.
Finally, I will briefly mention two major challenges found
in our initial observations in the field during the Update/
Leave operation.
First, our staff saw firsthand how the slow performance and
lack of systems reliability are affecting efficiency in local
Census offices. We observed work getting interrupted, data
having to be entered into the system more than once, and
completion of tasks being delayed.
Second, we identified a few areas in which it appears that
maps were not updated from address canvassing. If widespread,
this would be a significant problem. We are working with the
Bureau to determine both the extent and reasons for these map
errors.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, although much of the Bureau's
plan is on track, IT problems place the efficiency and accuracy
of nonresponse followup at risk, and final decennial costs
remain uncertain. While our testimony today discusses serious
IT system challenges, we are mindful of the extraordinary
efforts being made by a very dedicated Census staff to achieve
a successful outcome.
This concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer
any questions that you or any other members of the subcommittee
may have at this time.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Ms. Gordon.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon follows:]
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Mr. Clay. I want to thank all of the witnesses for their
testimony.
Now the committee will proceed to the question-and-answer
period, and we will begin with Mr. McHenry, who will be allowed
to give an opening statement as well as questions.
Mr. McHenry. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it's--you
know, right in keeping with your testimony, I certainly
appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your having this hearing today
because it is obvious that we still have a lot of questions and
issues to resolve even though census day is just less than a
week away.
And it is great concerns that I hear from every one of you,
significantly different from the Bureau compared to the last
testimony we had from Dr. Groves. But I do appreciate you all
coming. I know it's very busy right now, both for the IG and
for the GAO as well as for the Census Bureau.
But it does seem to me like we're jumping the gun a little
bit on this hearing. I think we're going to need to have
another hearing and see how the mail is coming in, because
we're just days into mail coming back in and determining our
response rate. So I do think, with the chairman's leadership,
we should be able to do that when Congress comes back.
Most households didn't even receive their 2010
questionnaire until about a week and a half ago. A lot of my
constituents are writing and calling about this as well, which
is a good sign that people are aware of the census, but I
certainly appreciate the chairman's leadership with what's
going on and making sure that we have frequent hearings on this
matter.
As Dr. Groves has stated, he would like to have an ongoing
dialog with us as well.
Mr. Clay. And, Mr. McHenry, we do intend on holding
hearings to look at the mailback response rate and at other
functions of the Bureau in their effort.
Mr. McHenry. Well, thank you, and I'll get to my
questioning now; but you know, we've got some issues here.
Mr. Jackson, you're slightly less positive in the tone that
you have about the Bureau's preparedness.
Is the Bureau prepared for the 2010 census?
Mr. Jackson. Congressman, yes, sir, we are.
I am attempting to be candid, not in any way not
optimistic. I am convinced we will have a successful census. As
you know, 2 years ago, when we undertook what we call the REAP
line, we stated that choosing this path of doing paper-based
operations in lieu of continued automation would be somewhat
high risk. In general, that's what we're experiencing now. We
think we're prepared.
Mr. McHenry. Time is short.
So is the Bureau still on track to meet its budget outlook
and view for nonresponse followup?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. We've done a complete budget review
of nonresponse followup. We have looked at over 20 line items,
and we feel that we are more than prepared to do a successful
nonresponse followup at a range of response estimates on time
and within the budget we have.
Mr. McHenry. Mr. Goldenkoff, is that the view of the
Government Accountability Office?
Mr. Goldenkoff. From the data that we've seen, certainly
the future is uncertain. The Bureau may be able to handle the
workload as of today, but things are going to ramp up pretty
quickly. And as an example, you heard us mention the situation
with the operational control system. Right now, it's at a
capacity where it's handling seven simultaneous users per
office at a time. It needs to ramp up eventually to 16, and the
Bureau is definitely not there yet; but nationwide, right now,
it needs to go from 3,000 simultaneous users up to 3,000 during
nonresponse followup. From what we've seen, the Bureau still
has a lot of work to do.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Ms. Gordon, how many folks on the IG staff
are working on the census?
Ms. Gordon. Well, our plan is to have about 100 members of
our staff working on the census at the peak, and we're ramping
up to that in the early operations.
Mr. McHenry. How many currently are?
Ms. Gordon. How many currently? I think we have about 20 or
so working on it currently.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Mr. Jackson, in terms of the Vacant/Delete
Check, there has been--would you tell us why there is a change
of $137 million, an increase in the cost estimate for this
Vacant/Delete Check?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Two major components.
One, the number of vacant units, as you might suspect, is
higher because of foreclosures and because of the economy than
we expected when we did our initial planning, which, as you
know, runs about 2 years ahead of when we do the operation.
Also, we have added to Vacant/Delete, and we think this is
a positive step. A number of--a workload that consists of
housing units that we have identified through the LUCA process
that should be included in the census, we have added them to
Vacant/Delete so that we can get those included as soon as
possible and mail those households forms.
Mr. McHenry. What keeps you up at night?
Mr. Jackson. What keeps me up at night----
Mr. McHenry. Professionally, not personally.
Mr. Jackson. I do--I am managing the two critical systems,
that my colleagues have mentioned, daily. And we're making
progress----
Mr. McHenry. What two systems are those?
Mr. Jackson. The DAPPS, the payroll system. We've
recently--this past weekend, we upgraded that system, and it is
running much faster, so DAPPS is kind of receding from my worry
list.
The paper-based control system I manage with my colleagues
from field division and my CIO, Brian McGrath, who is here
today. So we are constantly looking at what we're doing,
selecting where we need workarounds so that by April 4th, we
will know what system we're taking to the field, and we can
test it the final 2 weeks before we go to nonresponse.
Mr. McHenry. So that's what keeps you up at night?
Mr. Jackson. That's what keeps me up, yes.
Mr. McHenry. Mr. Goldenkoff, I know you follow the census
extensively, and in the Government Accountability Office,
obviously that is your job to have these items keep you up at
night.
Mr. Goldenkoff. Exactly.
Mr. McHenry. What are those items that keep you up at
night?
Mr. Goldenkoff. The operation control system. That is sort
of the brains of the census. They can't conduct the field
operations without it, and right now, as we see it, there are
four issues with it.
One, people. They are being--the people who are working on
the system, they're working extremely hard, nights and
weekends, but they're under strain. There are just not enough
of them to go around, and the ability to train new people is
very limited. And it's quite likely that new problems will crop
up; and will they be able to handle these new problems and fix
the existing ones as demands on the system begin to increase?
There are also hardware and software issues, and all this
is running up against a very tight schedule. Nonresponse
followup begins at a very fixed date. Other operations begin at
very fixed dates, and if the system isn't ready, if it's not
able to support these operations, you're going to start seeing
schedule slippages and cost increases.
Mr. McHenry. How many folks at the GAO are working on the
census?
Mr. Goldenkoff. Right now, it's about 20.
Mr. McHenry. How many will be working on it in another
month or two?
Mr. Goldenkoff. We'll start to ramp up, too, for field
operations.
For example, for nonresponse followup, we have most of our
field offices involved, and so we will be on the ground,
observing nonresponse followup. Next week, for service-based
enumeration, we will have, also, most of our field offices
involved in observing service-based enumeration. So we are
quite prepared, and also, most notably, it is a very
experienced staff, too. Virtually all of our middle and senior
managers have experience from the 2000 census.
Mr. McHenry. OK. All right.
Well, Chairman Clay, I know there is an effort to get other
folks asking questions, but I certainly appreciate your being
very candid about this, and I hope that--you know, Mr. Jackson,
most of us are--my communities are very interested in making
sure the technology is available so that we can monitor the
response rate, the mail response rate. I appreciate the widget
that we're going to be able to put on our Web site, but we want
to be able to do that sooner rather than later so we can follow
this.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. McHenry--and point well taken.
Ms. Chu of California, you're recognized.
Ms. Chu. Yes.
I know this hearing is about the overall preparedness of
the census, but I want to talk about glitches that are
happening right now, Mr. Jackson.
In my area, there are residents that are complaining
because they are living in one city, but they're receiving
Census forms that are addressed to another adjoining community.
For example, residents in my area who live in Hacienda Heights
are getting Census forms that have La Puente listed as the
city; and apparently, the director, Robert Groves, put
something on his blog Tuesday morning in which he said: The
actual location of your address has been verified for accuracy,
and that it was a move by the Bureau to save money, and it
streamlines how the forms are sorted and delivered to you by
the U.S. Postal Office.
But you can imagine----
Mr. Jackson. Sure.
Ms. Chu [continuing]. The kind of feeling that people have
seeing the address listed incorrectly. And I also heard that
what they're saying is that, you know, as far as the bar code,
it's correct. So I want to know: Was this discrepancy really
intentional?
Mr. Jackson. Let me kind of explain how this came about.
We--in working with the Postal Service, this is the largest
public mailing that has ever occurred, 120 million addresses.
The Postal Service, in some zip codes, uses a single city when
they have mass mailings. Now, while we knew of this, we did not
know exactly what city name the Postal Service would select in
each zip code, and we probably underestimated the public
reaction because, as you say--and I would agree with you--it
certainly is alarming to some residents. There are other zip
codes, like the zip code I live in, where it is not unusual for
me to get mail labeled Colesville, even though I live in Silver
Spring. However, I realize that's not the case for everyone,
and we underestimated that.
So we have tried to emphasize that the proper counting and
tabulation in a jurisdiction does not depend on the city name,
and I think that message is now beginning to get through to
some public officials because we're beginning to see those
statements.
The proper allocation of a housing unit to its jurisdiction
really occurs when we do the physical location determination;
and about a year ago, we did an exercise called Address
Canvassing, and we used GPS coordinates to make sure the
physical housing unit was in the right block in your
jurisdiction. So that's what Director Groves means when he says
that it will not affect where you're counted.
I would not minimize, however, the concern that the public
has--and we've tried through our own media arms, through our
partners and through our regional offices--to ensure residents
that they will be counted in the right place. We did not
anticipate this level of angst, and for that, I apologize.
However, it does not have to do with where people will be
counted.
Ms. Chu. So this wasn't a move to save money?
Mr. Jackson. It is a--it's an efficiency move on the part
of the U.S. Postal Service, not necessarily the Census Bureau
trying to save money. The Postal Service does this for reasons
of efficiency and delivery accuracy.
Ms. Chu. So how could we avert this from happening next
time? Now it's too late, but----
Mr. Jackson. Yes. It will not be that complicated now that
we know the potential to cause, you know, public furor. I think
we will have to have an agreement of some kind with the Postal
Service to use only a single city name for a given area, and we
have a list of names. It's just that we gave the post office a
choice, and we probably need to work through a more mutually
agreeable arrangement in 2020.
Ms. Chu. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Ms. Chu.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cuellar, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jackson and the other witnesses, thank you very much
for being here with us.
Mr. Jackson, first of all, I want to thank the Census for
the heated map data. We've been keeping up with that from the
very first day. We appreciate that.
And I've been looking--as you know, I represent the
southern part of Texas, a lot of the border areas, and I've
been keeping up with, for example, the national average as of
today. On March 25th, the national average was 20 percent on
the participation rate. The State of Texas was 12. My home
county, which is--and I've been talking to Dr. Groves, and I
thank him for being down there--is 2 percent. Then I have Stark
County, which is another border county, at 4 percent. Zapata,
another county, at 7. Hidalgo, another one, at 6 percent. So
you can see there is a little sink trend we've been seeing for
a while.
And as you know, in the past, I've been bringing up
questions about how you're all spending that money. The
advertising on the spending, as you'll recall--I don't know if
you were here. The last time Dr. Groves was here, I was
bringing up the point that, when you all came up with your
budget on March 26, 2009 compared to the budget from February
4, 2010, there was a decrease in budget from local ad buys for
the hard-to-count communities, but at the same time, there was
an increase in the budget for production and labor and so
forth. So, you know, I'm one of those that I want to see the
efficiencies in how you spend the best dollars for this.
Are there any updates on the numbers for the budgets or do
we still have the same lower amounts of local ads? And I'm not
doing a comparison to 2010, because I know there was an
increase, but I'm looking at the--when you had a budget in 2009
and, of course, the latest budget. I just had a concern that
you put more money for production and labor and less money for
the hard-to-count, especially since I've been--and I told Dr.
Groves I was going to followup, and I placed a phone call
today, and I'm supposed to be talking to him tomorrow about the
hard-to-count and that we're going to followup on this because
we've been looking at this with a lot of interest.
And, again, the heated map data--I think it's one of the
best things the Census has done, and I want to congratulate you
on that.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Congressman, let me say that on the spending, the spending
for local ethnic audiences is actually higher than it was in
proportion to the spending for what we call ``diverse
America.'' Now, you mentioned a different categorization in
terms of production from paid media by--from actually buying
airtime, so I'm not sure what you----
Mr. Cuellar. Well, the reference was if we could save a
little bit more money in production and labor, because I think
one of the things--what happened, Mr. Chairman, was that you
all were paying actors money, and every time you run an ad,
they get a little fee.
Mr. Jackson. I see.
Mr. Cuellar. There would have been a lot of community--
local trusted leaders--church leaders and other community
leaders--in my district and other places that would have more
impact, with all due respect, than some actor from L.A.--sorry,
anybody from L.A.--or from somewhere else--Hollywood, should I
say. And I think--in my area, if you were to put one of those
local trusted leaders in one of those, I think it would have
had more of an impact, and I think Chairman Clay and I have
talked about this.
But I do understand there has been an increase, but I'm
trying to squeeze more dollars----
Mr. Jackson. Right.
Mr. Cuellar [continuing]. From the production and labor
because, you know, without going into details, there was an
increase there.
Mr. Jackson. Right. Let me tell you what we are doing.
We do have a reserve fund of about $7 million, and next
week we will be looking at a summary of the data that you just
mentioned, the daily response rates, which we track daily. We
look at them daily, and we will be making decisions about where
to strategically place additional ads and where possibly to
spend additional money in newspapers. So we are, I think, where
you want us to be on that.
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir, and I appreciate that.
I just wondered, just because when we met, Chairman Clay,
with Dr. Groves and your staff, that was exactly the point
we're talking about, the $7 million, and then we were going to
be tracking. I think we're at the time now that Dr. Groves
asked us to get back to him--and this is why I placed a phone
call earlier today--to followup on that because, like I said,
my home county, which I've been talking about, which is in the
top 50 counties that are hard to count, according to your data,
has 2 percent. And unless if it changed between the last time
you updated the number--it's at 2 percent, and we have one at 4
percent and one at 6 percent--way below the 20 for the national
average. So I just wanted to----
Mr. Jackson. Let me mention just a couple of other things,
Congressman, because I want you to appreciate, if possible, the
efforts we're undertaking to make sure we do count everyone
there.
Mr. Cuellar. And I do. I do.
Mr. Jackson. We're doing a procedure called Update/
Enumerate where we actually do the enumeration ourselves rather
than mail out in parts of your area. We will be not only adding
something to the strategic ads, but we have some special
partnership efforts we'll be undertaking around April 10th that
will put people on the ground to try to encourage respondents
who have not responded by that point in time, and of course, we
still have the replacement questionnaire that we will send out
next week.
Mr. Clay. Excuse me.
If I may, Mr. Jackson, would you share with Mr. Cuellar and
the subcommittee in writing the efforts that you're making in
hard-to-count communities----
Mr. Jackson. Certainly. Certainly. I'd be more than happy
to and to meet with your staff.
Mr. Clay [continuing]. In particular in south Texas.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, we will. We'd be more than happy to.
Mr. Cuellar. And, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you. I know you're all trying the best. I'm just trying
to do my best to represent my district.
Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Jackson, what is the--you are bringing in senior
engineers from your major hardware and software vendors to
review the PBOCS issue. I understand that even this Tuesday
there were severe performance issues.
What have your engineers found, and what are your immediate
plans for remedy?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.
We have brought in engineers, not really to consult but to
do, and there are parts of our configuration that have to do
with operating systems, Oracle data bases and certain hardware
configurations--network configurations--that are very powerful
but are somewhat new to us. So to augment our technical
resources, we have brought in consultants from each of those
vendors to make sure that the way we are using their technology
is appropriate.
Mr. Clay. Sure.
Real quickly, tell the subcommittee about the Bureau's
contingency plans in the event of a data security breach.
Mr. Jackson. We have a COOP program, a Continuity of
Operations Program; and for data breaches, we have an
established set of procedures that we go through. We have
actually had to go through that a couple of times where the
local managers have instructions as to how to secure the
facility. We have at the Department of Commerce a reporting of
incidents that goes on every 24 hours, and then we have
protocols for contacting local officials to make sure that
anything that requires law enforcement involvement is
immediately invoked.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much for the response.
Mr. Goldenkoff, can you give me your general opinion as to
whether there is time to ensure that the Bureau's IT systems,
particularly DAPPS and PBOCS, can meet their operational
requirements?
Mr. Goldenkoff. There is time, but it's running out.
Mr. Clay. It's running out?
Mr. Goldenkoff. That's the bottom line.
I mean, as I said before, there are these fixed dates, and
there's still a lot of testing that needs to be done. A lot of
these release--not a lot--but the release that will be
responsible for nonresponse followup, that has some known
defects in it. That hasn't been fully tested yet, and as these
tests are completed, it's possible that new defects will be
found.
Mr. Clay. Have they followed your recommendation as to how
to shore this situation up?
Mr. Goldenkoff. They have, but they--for example, we
recommended better executive-level oversight, for example,
better coordination among the different teams, and they've
certainly done that, and we've given them credit for it; but in
the end, there's these immutable deadlines and the workload
that needs to be done, and from what we're seeing right now,
it's going to be a challenge to complete all the testing to
complete that workload in time for these operations to start.
Mr. Clay. Not shaping up like it should. Thank you.
Mr. Goldenkoff. It's worrisome.
Mr. Clay. And, Ms. Gordon, let me just have you finish off
the answers.
Your quarterly report states that Census spent 15 percent
less than it had planned for the 3 months ending in 2009. Is it
unlikely that the Census will continue similar cost containment
in the coming months?
Ms. Gordon. Well, we would hope so, but we wouldn't
necessarily anticipate that would be the case.
What we have seen is a lot of variability of actual costs
incurred as compared to the cost estimate, so--and we have
recommended that Census really rigorously apply internal
controls so that wages claimed and travel costs claimed are
actually what was incurred, and so we--you know, we're
encouraging Census to pay a great deal of attention to that to
try to keep the costs on track.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much.
Let me thank the entire panel for their testimony today. We
appreciate your testimony and your willingness to come before
the committee, and that concludes this hearing.
Hearing adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:53 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]