[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IS BROOKLYN BEING COUNTED? PROBLEMS WITH THE 2010 CENSUS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 19, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-101
__________
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.house.gov/reform
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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 JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
DIANE E. WATSON, California PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM JORDAN, Ohio
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
Columbia BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
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
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 19, 2010.................................... 1
Statement of:
Flateau, John, Deputy Secretary of the New York State Senate,
census coordinator for New York............................ 4
Groves, Dr. Robert M., Director, U.S. Census Bureau,
accompanied by Lester A. Farthing, Regional Director, U.S.
Census Bureau New York Regional Census Center.............. 17
Zinser, Todd J., inspector general, U.S. Department of
Commerce................................................... 26
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Flateau, John, Deputy Secretary of the New York State Senate,
census coordinator for New York, prepared statement of..... 7
Groves, Dr. Robert M., Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared
statement of............................................... 20
Zinser, Todd J., inspector general, U.S. Department of
Commerce, prepared statement of............................ 28
IS BROOKLYN BEING COUNTED? PROBLEMS WITH THE 2010 CENSUS
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MONDAY, JULY 19, 2010
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Brooklyn, NY.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m. at
Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY, Hon.
Edolphus Towns (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Towns, Clarke, Clay, and Rangel.
Staff present: Carla Hultberg, chief clerk; Bill Jusino,
Phyllis Love, and Ryshelle McCadney, professional staff
members; Shrita Sterlin, deputy director of communications; and
Ron Stroman, staff director.
Chairman Towns. The committee will come to order.
Good morning. Thank you for coming. Today we will examine
an event that occurred June 12th and June 13, 2010, which
resulted in whistleblower allegations against two former
managers at the Brooklyn Northeast Census Office, who ordered
census forms to be completed fraudulently using information
from an online data source instead of personal interviews.
We want to understand what happened, how much damage was
done, and what is being done to insure the accuracy of the
Brooklyn census count. I want each and every resident of
Brooklyn to know how important it is for them to be counted in
this census.
This committee has made the 2010 census a top priority; and
I don't have to tell you how troubled I am about this incident.
Anything that compromises the integrity of the 2010 census is
unacceptable. There is too much at stake here. We must do
everything in our power to make sure the final count is
accurate and complete.
As a co-sponsor of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement
Act, I am gratified to know that the problems in the Brooklyn
Northeast Local Census Office came to light because of a
whistleblower complaint. These complaints initiated an
investigation by the Census Bureau Headquarters and the New
York Regional Center, which resulted in the swift termination
of the two people who were responsible.
We need to know what has happened since that occurred,
because I'm concerned that a couple of bad apples may have
undermined the public's faith in the census. An accurate census
is essential to insure integrity and in redrawing congressional
districts. In addition, billions of dollars in the Federal,
State, and local funds are distributed based on the Census
Bureau's report on our Nation's population. The census helps
policymakers better understand where vital services are needed
most. I represent a district that is comprised of a number of
so-called hard to count communities; senior citizens, recent
immigrants, undocumented workers and people who don't trust a
stranger knocking on their door.
I recognize that these communities present challenges to
the Census Bureau; but these challenges must be met. With so
many in our communities in need of help, we need to get this
census count right.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. I hope
they will tell us how they have responded to this incident that
occurred on June 12th and June 13th, and to make sure we have
an accurate and complete count of Brooklyn's residents. Once
again, I want to let the Census Bureau know that this committee
is eager to work with you to make that happen.
At this time I would like to yield to the subcommittee
chair, the gentleman from St. Louis, MO, Congressman Clay; the
person who has the oversight responsibility at the subcommittee
level.
Congressman Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first thank you
and your staff for facilitating this hearing. And thank you for
your hospitality, and I'm always happy to return to Kings
County--no offense, Congressman Rangel--and this impressive,
historical Brooklyn Borough Hall.
Chairman Towns has provided significant help and support to
me personally in my capacity as chairman of the Information
Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee.
Further, the subcommittee has long recognized the
significance of an accurate count in Brooklyn. A subcommittee
field hearing was held here in February with a positive dialog
on reducing the census undercount in group quarters.
Today, however, we seek to glean information on the
problems brought to light via the inspector general's hotline.
The falsification of documents and fraudulent completion of
census forms are serious issues and have far-reaching
implications. I'm hopeful that Dr. Groves and Inspector General
Zinser will provide the oversight committee, the evidence to
insure that census 2010 enumeration is on the correct track;
and that effective measures were taken to mitigate the damage
done by a few.
Kings County is one of the hardest counties to count in the
United States. And it is crucial that the count here and, of
course, all across the Nation is accurate and substantiated. So
much is at stake; Federal funds, national prominence and
legislative position.
Mr. Chairman, I share your concerns and look forward to
today's hearings. I yield back.
Chairman Towns. Thank you to the gentleman from St. Louis
for his comments at this time.
I would like to yield to Congressman Rangel from Manhattan.
Of course, I want you to know that the fact that he is in
Brooklyn from Manhattan, it's a very serious hearing.
[Laughter.]
Congressman Rangel.
Mr. Rangel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
inviting me to share with you this hearing. I want to thank
Congressman Clay. He's done a terrific job in terms of the 2010
census, and all of his staff. He was able to put together this
hearing so that we can have a search for the truth.
I want to thank Mr. Farthing especially for the amount of
time he spent in my congressional district and especially in
the borough. My congressional district like yours, has a lot of
obstacles that census takers had to overcome. And all the work
that's been invested to make certain the process maintains its
integrity is so important, that if we find something going
wrong, we do exactly what you are doing; have hearings, find
out what went wrong, and make certain it doesn't happen again.
And of course, it's good to see my friend Dr. Groves, who's
worked with us in Harlem and the city all together. Of course,
we can't say Brooklyn without talking about the borough
president. And so it's very exciting to be here, and thank you
once again for the invitation.
Chairman Towns. Thank you, Congressman Rangel.
At this time, we'd like to hear from the borough president
of Brooklyn; a person who's provided leadership in this borough
for the past 9 years, borough president, Marty Markowitz.
Mr. Markowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much.
First of all, Congressman Clay, welcome to the 4th largest
city in America, which is Brooklyn, U.S.A. After the census,
I'm confident we'll still be the fourth, if not the third.
Certainly, Congressman Rangel, it's always a good day when
we see you here in Brooklyn. Which, by the way, Congressman
Rangel comes here quite regularly. I'll tell you something. In
fact, if he wasn't a Congressman in Manhattan, in Harlem, he
might relocate to Brooklyn, if he had his choice.
So thank you for your outstanding leadership nationally, as
well as here in New York; and of course to our chair, Ed Towns.
I always call myself Marty ``Towns'' Markowitz, and I say so
with a lot of pride. He started here, right in this building,
as deputy borough president.
Today he went right past me, and that's for sure. We're
very proud of you, Congressman. Thank you for holding this
important hearing here in city hall of the city of Brooklyn.
Thank you very, very much.
Let me, if I may, give a special welcome to Todd Zinser,
Inspector General from the U.S. Department of Commerce, and
from the Census Bureau, the Director, Dr. Robert Groves; and of
course, thank you for allowing Lester, who we know as Tony
Farthing, as being such an outstanding leader as your New York
regional director.
There's no doubt that, over all, the Census Bureau did an
incredible job with census 2010. The borough initiated broader
outreach efforts throughout Brooklyn's many communities.
This is a large county, as you know. Trying to count every
person living within its borders is a mammoth undertaking. I'm
confident that the Bureau understands the gravity of what
occurred at one of your Brooklyn locations.
I applaud them for listening to the whistleblowers who knew
what their superiors were asking them to do. What these
important employees did is a real act of courage. Even in this
tough job market, they believed enough in the census to risk
their jobs and do what is right.
Thanks to the Census Bureau, we know we are one of the
fastest growing parts of New York City. Historically, Brooklyn
has always been undercounted in the census. That's why for much
of this year our office here at Borough Hall initiated the
Complete Count Committee, reaching out to communities borough-
wide, and urging them to spread the word about the importance
of the census.
Brooklyn deserves an accurate count, and we can't be
satisfied with anything less. And we have to remember, having
an impact on the count isn't just detrimental to Brooklyn. If
Brooklyn were its own city--which of course I wish we could
correct the great mistake of 1898--we still would be the 4th
largest city in the Nation, putting us ahead of Houston, TX.
So getting the census right in Brooklyn isn't just a local
issue, Mr. Chairman, it's a national one. Today it's about
making sure what happened at the Brooklyn bureau never happens
again; because when it comes to the census, we have just one
request. We want to be counted accurately.
Thank you very, very much.
Chairman Towns. Thank you, Marty Markowitz. We appreciate
your involvement and your leadership in this record, as well.
Now, we would like to have the deputy secretary of the New
York State Senate 2010 census coordinator for New York, a
person who has lived this for a long time. He was here when the
census office was burned down. We always have seen a lot of
problems in this area. Of course, Mr. John Flateau has been
there down through the years. So at this time, we would like to
ask him to give his statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN FLATEAU, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF THE NEW YORK
STATE SENATE, CENSUS COORDINATOR FOR NEW YORK
Mr. Flateau. Good morning and welcome to Brooklyn, our
historical gateway city, premier urban community in America.
I'm a long-time resident of Central Brooklyn. I'm a Medger
Evers College CUNY professor; and I currently work for the
Senate, coordinating the 2010 census efforts on behalf of
Conference Leader Senator John Samson, and Census Chair,
Senator Martin Dilan.
I also had the honor of serving as chair of the U.S. Census
Advisory Committee on the African-American Population, for
census 2000.
Thank you, Congressman Towns, our distinguished people's
Congressman, and Members of Congress, for conducting this
important hearing on the 2010 census.
One might ask the question, Why is Brooklyn important to
the 2010 census? Here are a few reasons why. If Brooklyn were a
city, it would be the 4th largest city in America. Second,
Brooklyn, or Kings County, is the largest county in the State
of New York. It is the largest of its 62 counties. And one-
eighth of all residents of New York State reside in Brooklyn,
where we now sit. There are 17 counties throughout the State
with less than 50,000 people. We have neighborhoods larger than
that in Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant, my home community, has
twice that population. And it is one of America's hardest to
count neighborhoods, a locale of consistent minority population
undercounts in previous censuses.
Third, approximately 15 percent of the State's entire
congressional, State Senate and Assembly delegations come from
just one county and borough; you guessed it, Brooklyn U.S.A.
Thus, Brooklyn's voice in Washington, Albany, and city hall
will be determined by legislative redistricting based on the
2010 census. Senator Dilan is the co-chair, and I'm a member of
the legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and
Reapportionment. They provided the major mapping and data
support for our 2010 census efforts, along with several other
census offices.
Another very important reason why we should pay attention
to Brooklyn: Brooklyn is just one of three counties in New York
State which is covered by Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights
Act, which requires preclearance from the Justice Department or
D.C. Federal courts before making any changes in election
policy or practice.
As the Congressman mentioned, Brooklyn's fair share of our
national $445 billion in Federal programs and services will be
determined by Brooklyn's 2010 census data. Civil rights and
anti-discrimination enforcement in employment, housing,
education, as well as voting rights enforcement for Brooklyn's
racial minorities, will be based on statistical analyses using
2010 census data.
Finally, Brooklyn and its 2.6 million people are one of the
most diverse counties in America, in terms of immigration,
race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic statistics, etc. There
are nearly 1 million diverse housing units throughout Brooklyn;
and Brooklyn is an epicenter for mortgage foreclosure crises.
These are some of the major reasons why it is critical to
achieve a 100 percent count in the 2010 census. Brooklyn, with
its diversity and demographic change, is America's ultimate
laboratory for getting the census count right.
The State Senate played a major role in helping to bring
that about, with our outreach efforts, mailings, targeted robo
calls, media advertising to hard to count areas, and low mail
response areas. The results are that the mail participation
rates in New York City and in Brooklyn are on the rise.
Congressman Towns' district, Congresswoman Clarke's district in
Brooklyn, and our Senate districts in Brooklyn all had
increases in their mail participation rates from 2000 to 2010.
You have before you a brief historical table of all of the
censuses that have taken place in Brooklyn since 1790.
Currently, the Bureau estimates that there are 2.6 million
people in Brooklyn: Over 1 million Whites, 1 million Blacks,
almost 400,000 Hispanics, and over a quarter of a million
Asians reside in Brooklyn right now. Brooklyn's diverse
communities must all be counted.
Thank you, Congressman Towns and Members of Congress, for
this honor to bring remarks, which hopefully frame a Brooklyn
context for this important hearing on the 2010 census. Your
leadership on this issue is vital to defining America's people
and future. Much is at stake. Please do all in your power to
insure that all of Brooklyn, New York State, and indeed, all of
America, is counted in the 2010 census.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Flateau follows:]
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Chairman Towns. I'd like to thank you, Dr. Flateau, for
your statement. Of course we look forward to working with you
as we continue to get it right. And we appreciate all you've
done in the past, not only this census, but in the years past.
Thank you so much for your statement.
Mr. Flateau. Thank you, Congressman.
Chairman Towns. I request unanimous consent that visiting
Members who do not serve on the committee be allowed to attend
the hearing and question witnesses. Without objection, so
ordered.
Let me ask the next panel to come forward, please? Before
you take your seats, I'll swear you in.
Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Towns. Let the record reflect that they all
answered in the affirmative.
You may be seated.
Dr. Groves, it's good to see you. And with so many in our
communities in need of help, we need to get this census count
right. And we have had some problems in this same area before.
Ten years ago we had problems, 20 years ago we had problems.
And of course here we are again, with problems.
So we want to make certain that we do everything that we
can this time around to get it right. We want to work with you
to make certain that occurs. So what we would like to hear from
you now is what happened on June 12th, June 13th and what
you've done since that incident on June 12th and June 13th. And
of course, as you know, we have had conversations in the past,
and I have tried to convey to you how serious this issue is for
us, because there are so many things riding on this.
When you look at reapportionment, when you look at housing
dollars, when you look at food stamps; when you look at all of
the things that you get as a result of the census count, it is
important that we get it right. Because here again, it is about
fairness.
On that note, let me describe how we work; 5 minutes, of
course, for your statement, and the lights will go--first it's
on green and then it will go on yellow for caution, and then it
will go on red. I want you to know red, everywhere in the
United States of America, means stop.
Dr. Groves.
STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT M. GROVES, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS
BUREAU, ACCOMPANIED BY LESTER A. FARTHING, REGIONAL DIRECTOR,
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU NY REGIONAL CENSUS CENTER
Mr. Groves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm happy to be here.
Subcommittee Chairman Clay, Congressman Rangel, Congresswoman
Clarke, I appreciate the opportunity to provide this testimony
and to clarify and describe the problems we discovered in the
local census office in Brooklyn just about a month ago.
In recent weeks, our colleagues in the Brooklyn Northeast
local census office contacted Census Bureau senior staff, as
well as the Office of Inspector General, alleging that
management staff members in that office were using an Internet
data base called FastData, a software package installed on
office computers to substitute information about households
they were supposed to be interviewing.
A second set of allegations that I'll speak to later
indicated staff in two Brooklyn offices also falsified
population counts for households, for which they were unable to
determine the population count at point of interview. We
investigated this. We confirmed that in both instances, staff
members acted in clear violation of our procedures and we are
now reworking the affected cases to insure that data are
accurate.
Mr. Chairman, this is deeply troubling. I find it abhorrent
to the principles, all principles underlying the work of the
Census Bureau. It undermines the outstanding work of hundreds
of thousands of our enumerators around the country.
We cannot and we do not tolerate such behavior. When we
find such behavior we terminate the personnel and redo the
affected work. The ethical violations that we have in this case
are at the managerial level, and those are particularly
troubling to me. Nonetheless, I think it's important to stress
that the events of this nature unfortunately have occurred in
prior censuses.
During training, therefore, we instruct our staff to
contact both senior Census Bureau staff and the Office of the
Inspector General if they see anything, if they suspect
procedures aren't being followed.
We train them to do this, we've established mechanisms that
we employ to correct those problems; and indeed, that's what
occurred in this case.
The quality assurance mechanism we employ routinely is a
reinterviewing, following up on some of the nonresponsive
followup interviews. We systematically reinterview a random 4
percent of each person's, each census taker's cases, and sample
enumerator's initial completed interviews at a much higher
rate.
We then examine data beyond that, looking for what we call
``outliers,'' unusual patterns of responses that may indicate
falsification or fabrication. In total, about 5 percent of the
work nationally and here locally in Brooklyn are completely
redone through this reinterview process, and we compare the
reinterviews with the initial interview data, looking for cases
that appear to not to have followed our training guidelines.
In this case, an office clerk in field operations contacted
our regional office staff leaving a phone message, alerting
them to what they thought was unusual activity, this activity
taking place on Sunday, June 13th. The charge was inappropriate
use of this Internet data base to complete enumerator
questionnaires. This same clerk and an office operations
supervisor reported this activity to the Inspector General's
office hotline on Monday, June 14th. The regional census office
began their internal investigation on that following Monday,
June 14th, based on the phone message left at the regional
office the day before.
The office was instructed to cease using FastData, this
Internet data base, immediately, for nonresponse followup data
collection. The Inspector General complaint was transmitted to
the chief of the field division in D.C. at the Census Bureau on
Monday evening, June 14th.
Then headquarters officials conducted an independent
investigation of the allegations on Thursday, June 17th, that
included interviews in the office, with office and some field
staff personnel. We also reviewed various reports on re-
interview and other quality control procedures, and then we
looked at FastData usage reports.
One of the important things to note is this Internet data
base, unbeknownst to the user, generates a log file. So
nationally we know every user's query into this data base, the
date, and the user name. This is a great piece of evidence to
investigate this kind of problem. Headquarters officials
completed the investigation on June 18th and provided
preliminary results the same day. The local office manager and
the assistant manager for field operations in that office were
terminated later that same day. The primary finding here was
that the inappropriate use of this FastData Internet data base
did occur at the direction of the office manager and the
assistant manager. The information was transcribed onto
incomplete enumerator questionnaires between June 12th and June
13th. And then a secondary finding is that the manager and the
assistant manager attempted to cover up this activity. In these
cases, our job is to determine what cases are affected by the
bad behavior and then to do essentially a redo process, going
over the work, make sure we get good data.
A group from the central office, from headquarters,
traveled to New York on Monday the 21st. As a result of their
findings, that investigation, a decision was made to proceed
with re-enumerating of all the cases completed on or after June
12th that were not yet checked in at all; and to direct the
office management team to have all rework conducted by
enumerators or crew leaders who did not do the original work in
question. We wanted to make sure this was an independent
effort.
To insure that the questionable activity didn't spill over
to other census offices, we did a complete independent
investigation of other offices in the area.
We also picked up a second allegation that was e-mailed to
both me and the Office of the Inspector General, about putting
into place population counts that were not clearly observable.
We're in the middle of the investigation of that. This has
generated proxy data that we believe is not accurate.
We are in the midst of a national review of that, looking
at the data as returned from offices throughout the country, to
make sure that we repair this when found, and that we find it
whenever it occurs.
In conclusion, I want to say how troubled I am that this
occurred. These are not the standards we seek to attain at the
Census Bureau. The vast majority of our employees are following
the procedures as laid out by us and do excellent work.
Thankfully, we have procedures in place to address the problems
when they occur. I'm also thankful for the efforts of the
Office of the Inspector General in helping us identify and
respond to the issues.
I'm joined today by New York Regional Director Tony
Farthing, and we're happy to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Groves follows:]
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Chairman Towns. Thank you very much, Dr. Groves.
At this time, we'll hear from you, Mr. Zinser.
STATEMENT OF TODD J. ZINSER, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF COMMERCE
Mr. Zinser. Chairman Towns, Representative Clay,
Representative Rangel and Representative Clarke, I appreciate
the opportunity be here today to testify on whistleblower
allegations we received concerning census operations here in
Brooklyn, and the steps being taken to insure the accuracy of
the 2010 decennial counts.
We have submitted a written statement that briefly
summarizes the results of recent investigations and the serious
allegations that managers in the Brooklyn Northeast local
census office directed employees to falsify census
questionnaires during non-response followup, using information
from a proprietary online data base.
My written statement also addresses the corrective actions
taken by Census to insure the fraudulent questionnaires are
redone and completed correctly.
On June 14th, upon receiving two whistleblower complaints
alleging irregularities with the nonresponse followup operation
in the Brooklyn Northeast local census office, my staff took
the following actions: That same day, we promptly alerted the
Census Bureau headquarters of the alleged irregularities,
emphasizing that the allegations were extremely serious and
that they warranted investigation. We alerted the Census Bureau
right away, based on protocols established between my office
and the Census Bureau, aimed at identifying and reporting
problems with the operations as soon as possible, to enable the
Census Bureau to initiate corrective action. That was done in
this case.
Some questions have been raised by the committee about this
process, specifically whether in sharing this complaint
information with the Census Bureau, we also shared the identity
of the whistleblower with them.
I want to give the committee complete assurance that we did
not share the whistleblowers' identities with the Census
Bureau. We protected the identity of the whistleblowers by
redacting any identifying information from their complaints
before the allegations were forwarded by my office. Second, my
office has remained actively involved in this matter. We
monitor census actions to assess the complaints. And on June
28th, based on the facts coming to light, we converted these
complaints from the hotline case to a criminal investigation,
and we've assigned Special Agents to the matter.
Since that time, my office has taken the following actions:
OIG Special Agents have secured evidence of suspected
enumerator questionnaires. The OIG Special Agents have
interviewed census workers who were directed to carry out the
improper orders of local census office managers.
The OIG special agents recently obtained a sworn confession
from a former manager, and are working to secure the
cooperation of others involved. We are continuing to coordinate
our investigative efforts with the U.S. Attorney's Office of
the Eastern District of New York. We are also overseeing
remediation efforts with respect to the fraudulent
questionnaires. As indicated in my written statement, there
have been problems with the remediation effort the census must
address.
To correct the fraudulent questionnaires at the Brooklyn
Northeast office, the Census Bureau initiated a re-enumeration
of those addresses. There are established guidelines for
conducting re-enumerations.
However, during the course of this re-enumeration, we
received additional hotline calls that there were
irregularities in the way the re-enumeration activities were
being carried out. These irregularities appear to have been the
results of an interpretation of the re-enumeration guidelines.
As a result of this mis-interpretation, census workers may
have entered incorrect information on the questionnaires, based
on assumptions about the number of people who resided at the
address; for example, based on the number of names on the
mailbox.
When it was reported to us that this was happening, we
asked the Census Bureau to address the allegations and the
Census Bureau's assessment to what extent the re-enumeration
must be done over. We will continue to closely oversee the
remediation efforts of the Census Bureau with respect to the
Brooklyn count.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to give credit to the
Census Bureau and how they responded to the whistleblower
allegations we received concerning the Brooklyn Northeast
office. They took the issue seriously, they took prompt,
corrective actions.
We've established what I view as an effective working
relationship for addressing those problems that arise during
the decennial, whether those problems have come to light from
our hotline or through the observations our OIG staff has made
through their hundreds of field visits across the country.
That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I'm happy to
respond to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zinser follows:]
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Chairman Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Zinser, for your
comments.
Let me begin with you, Doctor. As I indicated, this has
been an area with a lot of problems in the past. I'm sure you
are aware of all the problems that happened back then, where
the census office was burned down, and other problems.
This has been an area that in every census, we have
encountered difficulties. And of course, a time to bring people
from all over the country to finish the count.
My question to you is, do we have enough time to do an
accurate count?
Mr. Groves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We in this census, in
terms of the operations nationally, and I can say locally here,
have finished all of the various operations, about 11 in
number, on schedule and under budget.
We are now at a period where we are doing a lot of quality
assurance work, and we still have people on the streets
knocking on doors for that purpose. I can assure you that all
of the operations we need to do the followup on any rework that
we will discover, we have discovered or will discover, we will
finish those up at a professional level, taking the time to do
it right. We have the time.
Chairman Towns. I'm referring, actually, to the Brooklyn
one.
Mr. Groves. Yes, we have the time. The reworking on the
first problem that we encountered, the use of that Internet
data, is already in progress. We're really getting toward the
end of that work. That's about 4,200 households, about 2
percent of the population covered by this office; and we are
really close to finishing that.
Chairman Towns. Mr. Zinser, how did you become informed
that there was a problem.
Mr. Zinser. Sir, we maintain a hotline that is manned by
OIG staff. And calls came in to the hotline, they spoke to our
agents that this was happening. We have an established
procedure for recording complaints that come in. And for the
decennial census, once we've recorded the complaints and our
analysts have reviewed what the callers were complaining about
and identified it as a serious issue, through protocols we have
established with the Census Bureau, we forwarded that
information to them and asked them to investigate those
allegations.
Chairman Towns. Let me ask this: When you know that an area
has had problems in the past, do you look to see if you can
find an experienced person to go in there? Better than that,
how did you get these people that created this problem? I'm
talking to you, Dr. Groves, and to Mr. Farthing.
Mr. Groves. The personnel in question went through
precisely the same procedures that are done nationally. We
advertise for managerial positions in a lot of different ways,
both in newspapers and community meetings, fliers and job
fairs, and also on USA Jobs.
If I'm an applicant for a managerial position, I would
complete one of our application forms, I would take a test. I
have to perform on that test. I go through other evaluations
and then we get a pool of people qualified under those rules.
Then we have staff interviewed by permanent Census Bureau staff
and select a candidate based on that. That's how these two
individuals came to us. This hiring progress was followed as we
do throughout other offices.
Chairman Towns. There's no system in place that would give
you an experienced person to go into an area that's hard to
count, had the problems we've had the past? There's no system
in place?
Mr. Groves. That's part of the interview process. Maybe
Tony could mention in these cases how this was handled in these
offices that we are talking about.
Mr. Farthing. One of the things that we do is, we look for
individuals that meet the qualifications, No. 1. They can come
in, they have knowledge of the area. We look for individuals
that actually know the area enough to know what they are
getting into in terms of conducting a census.
We also look for individuals which we're very fortunate to
have at times worked for us in the past, who understand the
operations and we feel they can come in, and actually perform
at a level better than someone new to the process. In the case
for this particular office, we had an individual who actually
worked for us before.
Chairman Towns. You are aware that this area had a lot of
problems in the past. Are you aware of that.
Mr. Farthing. I live in the area, so I know; and I've
worked there for three decades. I know.
Chairman Towns. At this time I yield to the subcommittee
chair, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. I'll start with Dr. Groves. You mentioned that
population counts that are not verifiable, that are popping up
around the country. And apparently you have a system in place
that alarms you or alerts you that some data is tainted or of
some systemic glitch. And apparently, that system worked in
this instance also, where it came to you that, while I guess
the whistleblower system worked. Once you got into the data you
also figured out that it was contaminated.
Share with us how that worked.
Mr. Groves. The first alert on this did come from office
staff members, and I share the borough president's note that
these are courageous people that came forward, and we thank
them for what they did. They saw irregularities going on in the
office. That kicked off our internal investigation.
The irregularities they picked up were on cases that had
not yet been forwarded to the processing centers; we have three
around the country. It is our belief that if the whistleblower
had not come forward, we would have caught some of those cases
in the reinterviewing process. But I can't prove that, since
that isn't how this unfolded.
We have design procedures built in for quality assurance
that happen every time. Essentially, 100 percent of our
enumerators have had some of their work redone and checked, a
double checking. This gives us some comfort nationally.
By the way, if you are asking what portion of those are we
finding involved in some falsifications, it is 0.14 percent. It
is a very small percentage of the enumerators that we're
finding not following our training guidelines, and that's some
comfort nationally.
Nonetheless, this happened. We found out about it through
the courage of an office staff member who saw bad things
happening and reported it.
Mr. Clay. What is the status of the two employees, the
supervisor and assistant supervisor? Have they broken any laws?
Mr. Zinser. Sir, the Census Bureau terminated those
employees on June 22nd, I believe. And they were able to do
that promptly because the census workers are temporary
employees, and that gives the Census Bureau the flexibility to
make those determinations without the difficulty associated
with personnel practices and processes; so they were
immediately terminated.
In terms of whether or not any laws were violated, we
certainly know that census procedures were violated. I think
the question of whether laws were violated should be left up to
the U.S. Attorney's Office. I have satisfied my legal
requirement to refer matters to the U.S. Attorney's Office. I
have reasonable grounds to believe that laws have been
violated. So since I have reasonable grounds to believe they
have been violated, I leave it up to the U.S. Attorney's Office
to make that final call.
Mr. Clay. Dr. Groves, anything to add to that?
Mr. Groves. We at the Census Bureau are in full support of
the Inspector General's actions in this matter.
Mr. Clay. In comparison to the 2000 census for here in
Brooklyn, how does it compare to this year, as far as
completion rates, mail-in rates?
Mr. Groves. I think Mr. Farthing is the best to answer.
Mr. Farthing. In the Borough of Brooklyn alone, we've been,
at least this census, we've been very happy to see that the
actual completion rate--we're looking at two things. One is the
participation rate; and in the Borough of Brooklyn it did
increase. And if you look at some of the statistics that we
have on our Web site, you can see we track the areas that
showed tremendous increase from 2000. We are very happy about
that.
What that means, of course, we have to knock on fewer
doors, and have better data because people willingly respond to
the census.
Mr. Clay. If I looked on the Web site today, what
percentage would be counted in Brooklyn?
Mr. Farthing. If you looked at the Web site today for
Brooklyn, the participation rate in 2005 was 52 percent; and
for 2010, it went up to 55 percent. The significance of that is
that we've been really--in the past 10 years--in an environment
where it's been very difficult to do survey type work and get
the public to respond.
And so for the past 10 years, looking at the Borough of
Brooklyn, there have been many changes. I'm preaching to the
choir, to our representatives from Brooklyn. But we have a lot
of immigrants in Brooklyn, a lot of change, a lot of new
housing; and a lot of folks, of course, who are fearful about
their status, of the environment. To actually have people
respond willingly would really indicate a lower rate that we're
able to increase.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Chairman Towns. The time has expired.
And now the chairman of the New York delegation, Charles B.
Rangel.
Mr. Rangel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Exactly what law is it, Mr. Zinser, that you referred this
case to the U.S. Attorney's Office, that you believe was
violated?
Mr. Zinser. Sir, there are actually provisions in Title 13,
a statute governing the Census Bureau. There are provisions in
Title 13 that make it a felony to falsify census records.
Mr. Rangel. Exactly how was this done? What was the actual
activity that had been violated under the law.
Mr. Zinser. The Census Bureau procedures for recording
census information includes actually going out and interviewing
respondents. And if they can't get responses, then they have
procedures for what's called ``entering proxy information.''
Those procedures do not include the actions that were taken by
the local census office manager and the assistant manager for
field operations.
What we found, what the Census Bureau found, is that those
managers, instead of actually getting information from the
residents or using proxy information according to their
procedures, directed their employees to take data that was
contained in a proprietary online data base and enter that on
the census forms instead of following procedures.
In my view, that provides me a reasonable grounds to
believe that provision of Title 13 was violated.
Mr. Rangel. How many instances do you recall we've had in
the city of that nature, Mr. Farthing? In other words, just
putting in any information instead of getting the accurate
information?
Mr. Farthing. In this case, using a data base. Again, using
a data base that was not provided in our provision of
procedures to actually get the count. We wanted them to go out
and knock on the door and get information.
Mr. Rangel. So they didn't go out to get information
themselves. How many cases have been brought to your attention
for the city of New York? I want to get a feel for how
widespread this is.
Mr. Farthing. In my three decades of working here, I've
never had managers take that step, to order employees to
actually do what they ordered them to do. For me, this is the
first time in my working here that I've seen that.
Mr. Rangel. This is the first time you've heard of the
director or the manager actually using arbitrary information
instead of going out and getting it.
Mr. Farthing. Yes; first time.
Mr. Rangel. We haven't checked petitions yet, in terms of
signatures people have gotten. [Laughter.]
You have done a better job, if this is the first time you
have heard of that. Let me say this. You've done an outstanding
job. This is a Constitutional requirement, and as the chairman
pointed out, it is so necessary that we preserve the integrity
of this system, so that others will avoid the temptation of
avoiding doing the right thing. I think you've done a great
job.
I want to thank you on behalf of all of the community
leaders and elected officials, party officials, who you
partnered with, in order to get the accurate information in my
borough.
Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Towns. Thank you very much.
Let me recognize the Congresswoman from the Borough of
Brooklyn, who's part of the district affected by this,
Congresswoman Yvette Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Chairman Towns, Subcommittee
Chairman Clay, for inviting me to sit in on this hearing
regarding this very pressing and important issue, which is
affecting my district, the Brooklyn community and the greater
New York area.
I'd like to acknowledge my colleague Congressman Rangel,
and all the special guests joining us here today.
As the representative of the 11th Congressional District, I
have been diligently rallying with my constituents and my
colleagues at the State and local levels, so we can get fuller
participation in the census process. That's why I'm very
concerned about the recent incidents of fraud that have been
discussed here this morning.
Like many of my colleagues in the New York congressional
delegation, I represent a diverse constituency. According to
the census of 2005, and 2007, the American community surveyed,
the year to date estimates, the total population of my district
is roughly 700,000 people.
Approximately 39 percent of this population are foreign
born immigrants from all over the world. Approximately 47
percent of the immigrant population settled in the community
between 1980 and 2008, and has yet to obtain natural
citizenship. They are legal permanent residents. Some have
legal visa designation or are simply undocumented.
This extremely vulnerable population is already concerned
with sharing private information with government entities, for
fear of compromising their immigration status.
Therefore, when incidents of fraud arise regarding census
information, it is deeply troubling to both myself and my
constituents, because of the potential impact it has on fragile
participation rates altogether.
As a result, an accurate count of the residents in our
district, the integrity of the process and the direly needed
resources to our districts become further compromised.
Moreover, since the incidents of fraud were exposed by an
honest employee, I'm concerned about the unknown rate of fraud
that is yet to be exposed.
It is my hope that this hearing, and it is my
understanding, that we are gaining insight in ways to mitigate
the occurrence of fraud for future censuses. The people of my
district and Brooklyn heavily rely on it.
So my first question is, one thing that I stressed in my
community is the cost associated with not filling out a census
form, or when filled out indirectly or fraudulently.
Inspector General Zinser, do you have any knowledge of the
cost estimation associated with the re-enumeration process and
that of the approximate 4,221 cases that need to be reworked?
And now that there are issues with the re-enumeration, what are
the compounds costs?
Mr. Zinser. Thank you, Representative Clarke.
We have a rough estimate of how much it would cost to do a
re-enumeration; $16 a case, 4,221 cases identified, so roughly
about $50,000 that the fraud is actually going to cost the
taxpayer.
On the re-enumeration, on the problems with respect re-
enumeration, I would probably let Dr. Groves discuss that;
because I don't think the Census Bureau settled on exactly how
it is going to address that issue.
Mr. Groves. I think it would be good first to describe how
we identify what cases needed to be redone; because we tried to
do--actually, what you said, Congresswoman, is exactly what we
said in our meeting. How do we know how widespread this is? How
are we going to find out what actually happened? And then, when
we find the cases that are damaged, how are we going to rework
them?
And we did this--the one benefit of modern technology is
that we have large computer files that processed data already,
and we're using those to try to find other cases. The fact that
we had computer logs that listed every inquiry, every query to
this data base, allowed us to zoom in on the cases queried. And
we are redoing every one of those.
And then we're redoing others around there that are
suspicious. So we are actually redoing more work than we think
was actually affected, but we ought to make double sure that we
got it right; and that sums up to the 4,200 number of cases.
And we used an independent set of interviewers. I think that's
very important; people that were not involved with the original
work at all, and sent them out.
Ms. Clarke. What do you estimate the cost to be?
Mr. Groves. My estimates are a little higher than my
colleagues. So we don't know exactly, first of all. We've been
using the figures of roughly doing an interview cost, about $57
per household. We have about 4,000 cases; and I'm getting
something closer to a quarter million dollars for this repair
effort.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Towns. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Clarke.
First of all, if not for the whistleblowers, would your policy
control pick up this?
Mr. Groves. To be absolutely honest, we won't know; because
we caught it early. My professional judgment is that we would
have seen irregularities through our normal quality control
procedures. It would have taken a couple of weeks, and then we
would have caught it.
Chairman Towns. I listened very carefully this morning. I
notice, in terms of the question raised by Chairman Clay, about
the participation rate. And you indicated that it increased
from 52 to 55. I'm trying to be impressed, but I'm having
difficulty, because that still leaves 45 percent of our
residents that are not being counted. Help me. I'm trying to
find a positive thing here.
Mr. Groves. It is very important to understand what that
number means.
Chairman Towns. Please help me.
Mr. Groves. We mailed out to large numbers of households
the paper mail questionnaire. Our best estimate at this point
in the borough, is that 55 percent of the occupied units
returned that form. What all that means is that we are going to
knock on 45 percent of the doors. And we followed up on every
one of those addresses that didn't fill out the form and mail
it back.
To be good stewards of the taxpayer's money, we thought
that 100 percent would have returned the form. But we don't
stop at the mail portion; that's just the beginning of the
process we are still finishing up here in Brooklyn, of knocking
on every door that did not return it.
Chairman Towns. Let me turn to you, Mr. Zinser. Have you
seen any complaints on whistleblowers, in terms of
repercussions in any way in your years of experience? Any
retaliation.
Mr. Zinser. In this case, we haven't seen retaliation. We
spoke to the folks who filed the complaints. They were
appreciative of our actions, the Census Bureau's actions. They
didn't indicate any type of retaliation.
One thing that's happening with the census right now, we're
starting to reduce staffing levels. So people are getting laid
off, and that's going to, in our view, probably increase the
number of complaints that come in; because people who aren't
going be afraid of retaliation will blow the whistle.
At the same time, we have our antennae up for allegations
coming, in that people may claim to have been retaliated
against to try to save their jobs.
Chairman Towns. How many whistleblower complaints do you
get nationally.
Mr. Zinser. From the start, October 1, 2009, we've gotten
between 650 and 700.
Chairman Towns. How many followups, and what happened.
Mr. Zinser. All of them have been paid attention to. We
sent probably 400 or so to the Census Bureau for action. We are
investigating or have investigated about 40 of those, and
probably there are 100 to 150 that, after we have reviewed
them, the information wasn't specific enough or the issues they
were complaining about wasn't substantial enough to initiate a
review. We did what we call ``zero file,'' keep them on file in
case we get information in the future of the same nature.
Chairman Towns. On that same line of questions, how many
would you just send to the Census Bureau and how many send to
the U.S. attorney.
Mr. Zinser. The issue of sending to the U.S. attorney, I
believe this is the first case we have actually referred in
2010 to the U.S. Attorney's Office. There was a case in 2000
that was referred to the U.S. attorney down in Florida.
Chairman Towns. My time has expired. I yield to the
gentleman from St. Louis, Mr. Clay, Chairman of the
subcommittee.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much.
Dr. Groves, do you think that the local census offices'
deadlines are so strict that they increase the chances that
other employees will take unacceptable shortcuts like this.
Mr. Groves. That's a great question, and it's one I think
about a lot. One of the things that managers face mobilizing
about 600,000 enumerators is, who are temporary employees, is
to balance the desire to finish the work expeditiously and
thoroughly, and then to avoid cutting corners.
This is a tough management job with temporary employees,
because many of them, when they finish the job, they lose that
source of income. And it requires great wisdom to balance
between deadlines and cutting corners appropriately.
One technique some offices use, and was used here I know,
is that at a certain point in the completion of the work, to
gather the work back up into the central office to redistribute
it to be done effectively by a smaller work force.
I have looked for rushing, evidence of rushing. I can't
find it systematically. We're worried about it, we talk about
it a lot in the central office to make sure we're not rushing.
And I haven't found the evidence that we are pushing people so
hard that they are cutting corners.
Mr. Clay. So you have not seen, Mr. Farthing, any evidence
of pressure to meet deadlines? Cases like this to occur.
Mr. Farthing. Keeping in mind that, as Dr. Groves said, the
number of people we have to hire, the infrastructure and
various layers, our managers are responsible for, again, making
sure that everyone that we give work to is working effectively
with what we call good time management.
For some, they may feel rushed. Some folks maybe aren't as
well in time management. We have to take action if that's the
case. And then we have others who seem to work fine within the
timeframe we allow everybody to get the work done.
As Dr. Groves said, the process of bringing the work in and
back in after a certain period of time, everybody we feel has a
comfortable cushion to get their initial assignment done. We
have to bring work back in at some point to make sure that
those still out there working are making effective use of the
time by going out to visit households at an appropriate time.
I think it's well known that our community, especially in
Brooklyn, everybody's not out of the home from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
We have a lot of folks who don't come home until 8 or 9 p.m.,
who are working more than one job. So we have to make sure that
the employees that we have get out of that mindset, that they
are actually going out to get very difficult cases at a time
that we think people will be at home.
Mr. Clay. I want to ask about Brooklyn in particular. Is it
difficult to get into these large apartment complexes, with the
doors locked and getting access to these high rises.
Mr. Farthing. I would tell you that Brooklyn and Manhattan,
closely followed by Queens, are the toughest places to do the
census in the country. They always are difficult.
Congresswoman Clarke, your office has helped me. For
example, we have buildings, some are wealthy buildings, where
the management will not allow us in for the census. By law,
they're supposed to let us in. Congresswoman, I don't know what
you did, but we got in there; a phone call or what.
Mr. Clay. She's awfully persuasive.
Mr. Farthing. I appreciate it. We have other issues where
Congressman Towns knows, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, we have the
famous apartments above the store. And there's no doorbell,
there's nothing. The only way is to stand outside and wait
until somebody might come home, or maybe the store owner below
comes home; a very, very difficult place to conduct a census.
Aside from that, Congresswoman, I appreciate what you said.
The reality we to have to face in Brooklyn, especially
immigrants and those that are undocumented, pose a lot of
problems for us.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Mr. Zinser, last question. These managers used an online
information resource called ``Fast Data'' to complete
questionnaires instead of conducting personal interviews. Can
you describe how to use this data, this FastData online? You or
Dr. Groves?
Mr. Zinser. Yes, sir. Basically, what we looked at was its
use in the local census offices. And there is a division in the
office between those who are actually overseeing the operations
and actually going out and knocking on doors.
For those doing quality assurance with FastData access, or
having access to the FastData, it was supposed to have been
limited to the quality assurance staffer; so that the quality
assurance staffer, they go through the work done on the other
side of the house, and have some information to match that
against locally.
What happened in this case is that the area manager of
field operations switched from the quality assurance side of
the house, where they had access to FastData, over to the
operations side; and they maintained or kept their password to
data and used it for this purpose.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Dr. Groves.
Mr. Groves. Let me just add one note. You might ask, why
use it at all? And there's a very narrow use prescribed. On
these cases that are designated to be reinterviewed for quality
control purposes, we've found it efficient to sometimes do
those by telephone. We save the taxpayers a lot of money.
So the only prescribed use of this data is that--let's say
there's a house to reinterview on 123 Main Street, Apartment 1;
I would type that into FastData. If there's a phone number
there for that address, then we conduct the reinterview by
telephone, saving everybody some money.
That's the only use it's prescribed for under the training
guidelines. This office and these managers violated that.
Chairman Towns. I recognize the gentlewoman from Brooklyn.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One problem was a question raised by Congressman Clay. My
question is, what other information can be found on the system,
on the FastData system, other than addresses and telephone
numbers?
Mr. Groves. This is a data base that resembles a lot of
commercially assembled data bases this year. It has a list of
names of people, and then an estimated set of years that they
may have lived at that address. For some of the people, there's
a phone number attached to it.
In my prior life before being a Census Bureau Director, I
examined these types of data bases. They are filled with
erroneous data and sometimes helpful data. It isn't clear how
the year--these data are obtained from a lot of different
sources, driver's licenses all sorts of things.
Ms. Clarke. Are you saying that you can get someone's
driver's license number.
Mr. Groves. No, you can't. All you can get is a sense of
names attached to this address from some record system; and
that's all that was there. About every 10th person you have a
date of birth on the person's record. It's filled with a lot of
missing data, too.
Ms. Clarke. No Social Security number.
Mr. Groves. No Social Security numbers.
Ms. Clarke. Dr. Groves, my followup question is: What is
the procedure when employees who work in quality assurance are
promoted or transferred out of the division? Are passwords
supposed to be changed and access restricted? And how was it
that the former AMQA in question was able to retain her access
privileges?
Mr. Groves. I think Tony should best answer that.
Mr. Farthing. There's two things: Why have you taken the
action taken? We felt it's a very serious matter. Whenever
anyone accesses FastData on our computers, or is given access
in the first place, we actually have the rules and regulations
and also the penalties behind it. It clearly instructs them
they're not to use it for any other purposes but for quality
assurance and administrative action to be taken. If they
violate that, which was the case was here. The error on our
part was that we did not--when this person was moved over, she
continued to have her password, and her password rights were
not taken away.
Ms. Clarke. Is that typically what happens, though. Is
there an expiration on an individual's password? They're no
longer in that division, transferred, promoted moved to another
division of the census? Is there an expiration on the password?
What happens?
Mr. Farthing. Based on our findings, Congresswoman,
nationally, all of our offices get a very thorough review of
who has access, who should have access, who should not have
access. And so we have lots of people now who no longer have
access to this, based on the findings of what happened, taking
corrective action.
Mr. Groves. It's clear that going forward we can tighten
this. We tightened it now. In retrospect, we have to clamp
down.
Mr. Zinser. Congressman, I haven't done that at the
Commerce Department, though we did it at a former department
where I worked. The idea of people--whether they're employees
or contractors or temporary employees--having access to
computer systems through their passwords, after they leave
employment is a big issue, and one that we probably need to
look at governmentwide, because people keep access when they
shouldn't.
Ms. Clarke. I hope that we will.
My final question to you, Inspector General Zinser, in your
testimony you mentioned the need to clarify the census
definition of ``status,'' with regard to last resort cases.
Has the Census Bureau taken any steps to clarify the
ambiguity surrounding this for the 2010 census? And if so, has
it been standardized in order to mitigate any further
misunderstanding by enumerators across the country?
Mr. Zinser. Congresswoman, I don't know the specific
answer. I know that except for here in Brooklyn, the
enumeration is virtually completed. I don't know if the re-
enumeration guidelines are really being used anywhere else, but
I'll have to let Dr. Groves respond.
Mr. Groves. As soon as we diagnose this--our regional
directors have a conference call every day about 2 p.m., I
think. The word went out quickly to redouble the instructions
about how to handle these sorts of cases.
We also did queries back about whether there were any other
pockets that people knew about of these abuses; and then we're
doing a computer search to find them. We are able--the good
thing this is, we're able to diagnose and identify these cases.
Given our data files, that's what we're doing very actively. I
don't have the results yet, but we're on it.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Towns. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Clarke.
Let me ask the question: You indicated that Brooklyn was
one of the hardest areas to count. Is there any extra
compensation or additional workers be put in an area like that?
I'm just wondering if there's pressure to make them do the
funny things they've done over the years in this particular
region?
Mr. Groves. Tony can comment on the salary and the
operations and how the operations are designed. That might be
the best way to address your question.
Mr. Farthing. In Brooklyn, actually all of New York City,
we pay among the highest pay rates for the census in the
country. And that's for not only our census takers, but also
for the managers that we hire in all of our offices.
It does take on my part and my staff, we really do have to
go out and do very heavy recruiting, specialized recruiting to
find the right type of individuals. I've been to all of your
offices to ask help for us. Congresswoman Clarke, you answered
our call. We came to find out good people to take this job and
describe what the job was, and just how difficult it was going
to be. We do pay, I think, well. But it's just a very tough
place to conduct the census.
Chairman Towns. Now that we have this problem, will they
need extra time to do the count, or can we still meet the
schedule in the end of July?
Mr. Groves. I am quite confident that the scheduling for
the next operations and the ability to react to anything we
haven't found for redo work is sufficient to do a great job
over the coming weeks.
Chairman Towns. The way it is structured, you think this
creates a problem for you? For instance, if a person knows that
``Once I finish this count I'm unemployed.'' That sort of,
``I'm working myself out of a job.''
It reminds me of what the lady at the airport the other day
said to me when I asked questions about bags being checked. She
said, ``Why would I help you? If you learn how to do this, then
I'll lose my job.''
So the point is, I'm thinking in terms of, if they finish
counting, then they're unemployed. That's not an incentive to
finish.
Mr. Groves. That's correct. I've tried to express the same
managerial challenge in the earlier question. This, Mr.
Chairman, is endemic to how surveys and censuses work. We often
rely on temporary staff. Our management procedures have built
in ways of addressing that as best we can, but we cannot deny
the emotional reaction of one of our workers, knowing that upon
completion they will lose a source of income.
We try to address that by gathering up work and
redistributing and so on; but the fact of the matter cannot be
denied. That is a tension in managing these operations.
Chairman Towns. Dr. Groves, I must admit I have great
admiration and respect for you. This is a tough job. This is
not an easy job. When you see how it's structured and what you
called upon a person to do within a certain timeframe--you too,
Mr. Farthing--the fact that you have one of the toughest areas
in the country to count.
And of course, I want to let you know that I recognize it's
not easy. That's the reason why we want to have this hearing,
to try to do whatever we can to help you.
I yield again to the committee chair, the gentleman from
St. Louis, MO, Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to say how
honored I am to come to a hearing here in Brooklyn and to
engage with my colleagues, Congresswoman Clarke, as well, and
Congressman Towns and Congressman Rangel in this hearing.
You know, it seems as though we struggle so every 10 years
with the census. People in the audience indicate that they are
not as pleased as they could be with the results of the census.
But from my perch, I'm confident that this will be one of the
most accurate censuses that we conduct in the history of this
country, because of the leadership.
Let me ask Dr. Groves or Mr. Farthing, How has the re-
enumeration of these 10,000 forms gone? Is it pretty much
complete, or----
Mr. Farthing. As of the end of the weekend, we're about 80
percent complete on that work. Just to kind of reassure you of
what we have done; we've broadened the team from my office and
offices nearby, some of our best workers to oversee this and
make sure it's done right.
If we see irregularities, again, as Dr. Groves said, in our
processes, checking and reviewing work, then we basically take
care of the problem and go back out to make sure it's done
properly. But I would say it's such a small amount of work
we're working on compared to what we had initially when we
started out on this; so it's just a matter of getting the right
people who are very experienced to get out there and get the
job done.
Mr. Clay. In a related question or concern: How are the
clerks that were instructed or ordered by the manager or
assistant manager to taint this data, how are they doing? Are
they pretty much readjusted or still in place.
Mr. Farthing. Yes. There's no retaliation. I think as Dr.
Groves said, we're very grateful to them for speaking up. As
Dr. Groves said, if they didn't speak up, we would have had to
detect this work much later in the process. But they spoke up
quickly, and that enabled us to take care of problem right when
the work was in the office and we could really address it right
then and there. So we are very happy with those individuals and
there was no retaliation by any means.
Mr. Clay. As Chairman Towns mentioned at the beginning of
the hearing, Brooklyn has had a history of difficulties when it
comes to the census. We know it only occurs every 10 years. I
was not aware that there was an office that was burned 20 years
ago.
Apparently, it must be somewhat unique for Brooklyn, and I
guess you have to prepare for that at the beginning of each
census. And I assume you were ready for instances likes this or
something similar?
Mr. Farthing. Our motto in my office is ``Prepare for the
unexpected,'' and Brooklyn seems to always put us in that
position. I'm happy that in 2000 we had a very good census in
Brooklyn. We didn't have a lot of issues or anything come up
like we've had right now and the 1980 census, for example.
But as I said earlier, it's a very difficult job and you're
dealing with all walks of life; and you have to be prepared for
a very diverse community here in Brooklyn. You have to actually
have great knowledge behind the neighborhoods, your hirees
you're bringing into the office. And you have to have a lot of
cultural sensitivity. It's a very tough job to blend the
elements together and deploy workers and make sure that
everybody is doing what they are asked to do, and so the
challenges are great. To be up for the task, my job is to find
people who can actually go out and help manage in the effort.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Farthing for your response and Dr.
Groves and their responses. I yield back.
Chairman Towns. Thank you.
I yield to the Brooklyn Congresswoman.
Any additional questions?
Ms. Clarke. Just a final statement, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Farthing, I think I concur with the chairman when he
talks about just incremental changes in the response rate here
in Brooklyn. I understand why you would find it to be a great
thing.
On the other hand, those of us who live in Brooklyn and who
rely on the resource that is important to bear as a result of
enumerating the population, it still remains disappointing.
My question to you is, how does Brooklyn rate in its
response rate to other similar environments across the Nation?
Other urban, heavily populated areas?
Mr. Farthing. The Borough of Queens had a 56 percent
response rate in 2000; and they went up 3 percentage points to
59 percent. Queens has much more difficulty now with the
increase of the immigrant population.
The Bronx is about 57 percent. It went up in 2000 up to 62
percent. Manhattan, typically, is a little bit higher. They
were 62 percent in 2000 and went up to 67 percent. Staten
Island was 64 percent in 2000, 64 percent again.
Staten Island has become more difficult now, as folks from
Brooklyn moved over to the North Shore. It's unfortunate for
the census that you have to understand what happens over 10
years to your communities.
And for Brooklyn, what you don't get like in other
communities where you have folks born in this country and they
understand the census and there's a lot of civic pride--I'd
probably yield to the Congressman from Missouri. I'd love to
have the same characteristics, it would be easy to do a census.
But the city of New York is the greatest challenge of all
to do the census. I am pleased when I see that there are
increases in response rates. What's disturbing is when I see
response rates go down. That's most alarming.
Ms. Clarke. Dr. Groves, is it at all possible to provide us
information about how we rate with other urban environments
around the Nation? I would be very interested in finding that
out; simply, because I think you put your finger on the pulse
of it, Mr. Farthing.
We need a strategy to deal with immigrant populations, a
very examined strategy for the 2020 census. New York City is
the gateway for immigrants; an it has been since the beginning
of time. I think it will be for many generations to come. And I
don't think it is acceptable for us not to look at this,
knowing it's indicative of this particular area and not come up
with a very specific remedy and strategy to address it.
It may need an awareness campaign that begins even before--
before we get to the point of even discussing the next census.
But I think that our city suffers because we don't get as
accurate a count as we need to. And by extension, our State
suffers, because the heaviest population of individuals in the
State of New York reside in the city of New York.
I just wanted to put that on your radar. I'd love to get
that information. I think you've got a lot of work to do going
forward. I am pleased to see that there has been an increase.
My district in 2000 had an abysmal 33 percent response rate. I
applaud my colleagues at the State and local level who stayed
the course, and we worked together to make sure that we raised
the numbers. But I'm not satisfied yet.
And so Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Subcommittee Chairman, I want
to thank you for holding this hearing right here in Brooklyn so
we can put a lot of our concerns to rest; but also looking for
what we need to do going forward, strengthen our ability here
in Brooklyn.
Thank you.
Chairman Towns. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Yvette
Clarke.
I'm delighted to see we have with us District Leader Brown,
who's working very hard to help get information out to
communities. And State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, who
worked very hard with us in terms of getting the message out to
people about how important it is to be counted.
Let me say in closing to Dr. Groves and Mr. Farthing in
particular: Please do not rush through and go to the FastData.
Let's try to make certain that we get extra people in here to
continue this count. We want to make this as accurate as
possible. This is something we won't see again for another 10
years. And, of course, that's a lot of suffering of people if
we don't get an accurate count.
So whatever is necessary to get out a response rate and to
be able to get an accurate count, if it requires elected
officials going door to door and knocking on doors to help you
get in, we are prepared to make that kind of commitment to you,
that's how important it is.
Because there are so many things riding on this accurate
count; in terms of money for housing, money for food stamps,
money for education. All of these things are riding on this
count. So this is something that we do not take lightly.
This is very, very important to us, and I want you to know
the commitment across the board with elected officials
discussing it over and over again, that is the reason why we
want to have this hearing here, to let you know we stand ready
to work with you, to do whatever is necessary to be able to get
it right.
I know that we're running out of time. The point is that
instead of running out of time, it's about running out to see
how many people we can get to come in from wherever to be able
to make this an accurate count.
Thank you so much for your work, and I realize it's not
easy. The point is it's just so important.
And Dr. Groves, I want to thank you and I know you've been
out of the office on several occasions. I want you to know you
might have to come back again.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Zinser, and I want to thank
you for all of the work you have done.
And I want to thank my colleagues, Representative Clay, who
came all the way from Missouri to be here, to be able to take
it back to the committee he chairs, to be able to help us and
be able to do whatever is necessary to get an accurate count.
And my colleague who comes from the same district that I
have, who recognizes how important it is to be able to get an
accurate count. So I want to thank Congresswoman Yvette Clarke
for her work and, of course, effort.
And I want to thank Congressman B. Rangel, who came across
the bridge to be over here today. [Laughter.]
It's a long trip from Harlem to Brooklyn. Also, to try to
point out how important it is to get an accurate count. Thank
you so much for your participation. We look forward to working
with you to make certain that we get it right.
Thank you, Mr. Farthing, Mr. Zinser, Dr. Groves.
At this time the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]