| Critical Budget Issues Put 2010 Census at Risk |
Note: MPSA is a governing member of COSSA, which monitors all federal agencies that provide support for social and behavioral research and advocates for a non-politicized research agenda. This article appeared in the October 22, 2007, issue of COSSA Washington UPDATE. For more information about COSSA, visit their website at http://www.cossa.org/.
On Tuesday, October 16, the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, chaired by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), held a hearing to address critical budget issues affecting the 2010 Census. There was particular concern that having the Bureau operating at its FY 2007 funding level as required in the Continuing Resolution (CR) threatened plans for conducting some of the activities necessary to prepare for 2010.
Louis Kincannon, still the Census Bureau director almost one year after he announced his resignation, spoke candidly about budgetary concerns and the impact it has on the 2010 Census. By law, the decennial census must occur on April 1, 2010, and the results must be submitted to the President in December 2010. “These dates cannot be altered when preparations are delayed,” Kincannon testified. “When the appropriation requested in the President’s budget is delayed, we lose that time and we cannot always make it up,” he asserted.
Under pressure from the Bureau and its stakeholders, including COSSA, the Department of Commerce, with Congress’s approval, transferred $7 million to the Census to make up some of the shortfall. However, it is not enough to stave off several of the possible 2010 operations that are at risk. Kincannon told the Committee about some of the Bureau’s options for dealing with the funding shortfall.
- Cancel the testing of new handheld computers in the 2008 dress rehearsal. These promising but new devices must be tested in the dress rehearsal if they are to be used in the 2010 Census. Without them, the Bureau must resort to a paper-based census, which would increase the overall cost of the census by $1.5 billion. Four hundred contract employees involved in developing the handheld computers have already been laid off as a result of the CR, calling into question the future of this major census contract.
- Curtail or cancel parts of the Census dress rehearsal. Before the end of the year, hiring and training for the dress rehearsal must be completed to guarantee that operations are ready to launch in March 2008. If the agency cannot hire and adequately train enough temporary census workers, it may need to seriously curtail or to cancel the dress rehearsal. One test considered on the chopping block involves the rehearsal scheduled for the military barracks at the Fort Bragg Military Base in North Carolina. This would provide the only opportunity to evaluate plans for an accurate count of military personnel and other so-called “group quarters,” such as college dorms.
- Delay crucial address list updating by counties, cities, and towns. Delayed implementation of the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program will impede the ability of states, cities, counties, and towns to fully verify the Bureau’s street-by-street address lists and ensure that no housing units are missed.
- Postpone plans for the 2007 Economic Census. This count, scheduled to start in December, provides a detailed picture of the Nation’s economy every five years, guiding economic policy and decision-making at every level. Delay in final preparations could harm the completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of this critical fiscal information source.
Committee members, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Paul Hodes (D-NH) pressed Kincannon on why the Office of Management and Budget did not request an exemption for the Census Bureau in the Continuing Resolution to provide it with the extra funding it needs. Of course, Congress could also have provided the exemption. Census stakeholders are making a great deal of effort to get the Bureau its FY 2008 funding in the next CR that Congress needs to enact by November 16.