[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
THE 2010 CENSUS MASTER ADDRESS FILES: ISSUES AND CONCERNS
=======================================================================
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
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 21, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-29
__________
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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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
GERRY 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
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Columbia JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California
Darryl Piggee, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 21, 2009................................. 1
Statement of:
Groves, Robert, Director, U.S. Census Bureau; Robert
Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, Government
Accountability Office; Todd Zinser, Department of Commerce,
Inspector General; and Ilene Jacobs, director, litigation,
advocacy and training, California Rural Legal Assistance,
Inc........................................................ 8
Goldenkoff, Robert....................................... 27
Groves, Robert........................................... 8
Jacobs, Ilene............................................ 69
Zinser, Todd............................................. 52
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 4
Goldenkoff, Robert, Director, Strategic Issues, Government
Accountability Office, prepared statement of............... 29
Groves, Robert, Director, U.S. Census Bureau, prepared
statement of............................................... 13
Jacobs, Ilene, director, litigation, advocacy and training,
California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., prepared statement
of......................................................... 72
McHenry, Hon. Patrick T., a Representative in Congress from
the State of North Carolina, prepared statement of......... 85
Zinser, Todd, Department of Commerce, Inspector General,
prepared statement of...................................... 54
THE 2010 CENSUS MASTER ADDRESS FILES: ISSUES AND CONCERNS
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009
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 2:25 p.m. in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Clay, Maloney, Norton, Watson,
McHenry, Westmoreland, and Chaffetz.
Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Jean
Gosa, clerk; Yvette Cravins, counsel; Frank Davis and Anthony
Clark, professional staff members; Charisma Williams, staff
assistant; Carla Hultberg, chief clerk (full committee); Adam
Hodge, deputy press secretary (full committee); Leneal Scott,
information systems manager (full committee); John Cuaderes,
minority deputy staff director; Adam Fromm, minority chief
clerk and Member liaison; and Chapin Fay, minority counsel.
Mr. Clay. The Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census,
and National Archives will come to order.
Good afternoon and welcome to today's hearing entitled,
``The 2010 Master Address Files: Issues and Concerns.'' Today's
hearing will examine the quality and quantity of addresses
encompassing the master address file.
Before we begin today, I would first like to publicly
express my condolences to the family and friends of Bill
Sparkman. Mr. Sparkman was a Census worker found murdered in
Kentucky. This incident is extremely unfortunate and immensely
troubling. Census workers are doing a great civic duty for
their country, and it is intolerable that such violations
occur.
Further, I would like to commend Director Groves on his
efforts and concern for his employees. It is evident that the
safety and well-being of Census employees are of paramount
concern to him. I, along with this subcommittee, await swift
justice for those responsible for such a horrendous act.
Also I would like to, on another note, recognize a group of
visitors here who are part of the House Democracy Partnership.
We have 24 members of parliament from four countries this week
for a seminar on committee operations, with an emphasis on
organizing and holding public hearings. The visiting members
are observing video of a hearing and meeting with House staff
and Members to discuss the organization and conduct of
hearings.
I want to welcome those members of parliament here from the
country of Kenya, as well as Peru. Welcome. Hopefully you will
get something out of this hearing, which I am sure you will.
Without further ado, on our panel we will hear first from
Dr. Robert Groves, Director of the Census Bureau. Dr. Groves
will provide the status of the Bureau's ongoing efforts to
compile and update the master address file, including LUCA and
its appeal process, Special Gulf Coast initiatives, address
canvassing, and group quarter validation.
Welcome again, Dr. Groves.
We will then hear from Government witnesses who will
testify and assess the compilation of the master address file.
These witnesses will offer recommendations they believe will
improve the Bureau's efforts.
Our final testimony will come from a stakeholder who will
discuss her organization's concerns about census 2010. She will
provide her organization's actual experiences with hard-to-
count populations. She will also offer practical solutions to
aid in the partnership between the Bureau and community-based
organizations.
Without objection, the Chair 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
materials for the record.
Again, the purpose of today's hearing is to examine the
master address file. This subcommittee is committed to
reviewing the daunting and critical task of counting the
population. This constitutionally mandated exercise has wide
ramifications. The results are used to apportion legislative
districts at the Federal and State level. Moreover, the
distribution of more than $400 billion annually in Federal
assistance to local, State, territorial, and tribal governments
rely upon this count. Civic prestige, marketability, and
regional political power also rest upon these numbers.
As we look forward to April 1, 2010, the subcommittee
evaluates the status of the Bureau's efforts to count all
inhabitants of this country. The master address file is an
essential component of the 2010 decennial census; thus, an
assessment of the compilation of our addresses is of
fundamental interest and concern to the subcommittee.
Today's hearing will focus on the Bureau's progress in the
compilation, scheduling, cost, and transparency of the master
address file. The subcommittee will explore all aspects of
master address file, including but not limited to LUCA, the
LUCA appeal process, address canvassing, update leave, special
Gulf Coast initiatives, and budgetary matters. The Bureau's
interaction and cooperation with local and county governments,
community organizations, stakeholders will further be explored.
The success of the census is dependent on the quality of the
address list.
I thank the witnesses for appearing today and look forward
to their testimony.
I now yield to the distinguished ranking minority member,
Mr. Chaffetz of Utah.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all of
you who are participating in this, and thank you very much for
our guests. I hope you find this informative and I appreciate
your joining us here today.
As we work on this very daunting, huge, massive task of
trying to count every person in the United States of America
our time line is short. Here we have less than 6 months to go,
and undoubtedly the challenges will be huge. Of particular
concern that I would like to make sure of is are we up to the
task of making sure that everyone is fairly counted, that they
are not under-counted and they are not over-counted, and that
we have the tools necessary and the technology in place in
order to make that happen.
I have specific questions and concerns about the viability
of the work force that is being hired in order to do this
enumeration; specifically, the practice of hiring known
criminals. I know the background checks and the fingerprinting
have been an issue, and I would appreciate an update along the
way in that regard.
And then I also have questions as to why we don't or to
what degree we do utilize and tap into what we already do in
the U.S. Postal Service. They already have a Federal work force
of hundreds of thousands of people who go to every home, every
address in this country. I recognize some have Post Office
boxes and what not, and there are certain challenges with
illegally subdivided homes and what not, as Ms. Jacobs I am
sure will address, but, with that being said, mapping out this
country, why we are not more closely aligned with literally
hundreds of thousands of people who do this on an almost
everyday basis is something I think is worth at least a few
questions along the way.
I look forward to your testimony and appreciate the
interaction today. That is what this process is all about.
I thank the chairman for the time and yield back.
Mr. Clay. I thank the gentleman from Utah.
Would Mr. Westmoreland care to make an opening?
Mr. Westmoreland. No, thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Then, if there are no additional
opening statements, we will now receive testimony from the
witnesses before us today.
I want to start by introducing our panel. We will hear
first from Dr. Robert Groves, Director of the Census Bureau.
Dr. Groves has authored numerous books and articles. He was a
recipient of the prestigious Julius Shiskin Memorial Award in
2008. He has a B.A. from Dartmouth and a master's in sociology
and statistics, and further earned a doctorate from Michigan.
Dr. Groves' book, ``Non-response in Household Interview
Surveys,'' with Mick Cooper received the 2008 AAPOR Book Award.
Dr. Groves began his tenure as Director on July 15, 2009.
Next we will hear from Mr. Robert Goldenkoff, who currently
serves as the Director of Strategic Issues at the Government
Accountability Office. Mr. Goldenkoff is responsible for
reviewing the 2010 census and Government-wide human capital
reform. He has also developed a body of work related to
transportation security, combating human trafficking, and
Federal statistical programs.
Mr. Goldenkoff's various works have been published in the
Public Administration Review Policy Studies Journal, Government
Executive, and Technology Review.
Thank you for being here.
Next we will hear from Mr. Todd Zinser, Inspector General
of the Department of Commerce. As the Inspector General, Mr.
Zinser leads a team of auditors, evaluators, investigators,
attorneys, and administrative staff responsible for promoting
economy and efficiency in detecting and preventing fraud,
waste, and abuse in a vast array of business, scientific,
economic, and environmental programs administered by the
Department and its 13 bureaus.
Thank you, Mr. Zinser, for coming today.
Our final witness will be Ms. Ilene Jacobs from California
Rural Legal Assistance. Ms. Jacobs is the Director of
Litigation, Advocacy and Training. She has spent 30 years of
her legal career as an advocate for housing and civil rights in
low income communities in urban and rural United States. Ms.
Jacobs taught housing law for the UC Davis Law School and women
and the law for Yuba Community College. She obtained her B.A.
from Boston University and J.D. from the Northwestern
University School of Law. She has co-authored two publications
on the under-counted farm workers and indigenous groups in the
census.
Ms. Jacobs is the CRLA delegate to the National 2010 Census
Advisory Committee, for which she is chair of an ad hoc
subcommittee on hard-to-locate housing units.
Thank you all for appearing before this subcommittee today.
It is the policy of the subcommittee that all witnesses
before they testify be sworn in. Can I ask you to stand?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Clay. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Each of you will have an opportunity to make an opening
statement. Your complete written testimony will be included in
the hearing record. The yellow light will indicate that it will
be time to sum up, and the red light will indicate that your
time has expired.
Dr. Groves, you may proceed first.
STATEMENTS OF ROBERT GROVES, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU;
ROBERT GOLDENKOFF, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; TODD ZINSER, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE,
INSPECTOR GENERAL; AND ILENE JACOBS, DIRECTOR, LITIGATION,
ADVOCACY AND TRAINING, CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE, INC.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT GROVES
Dr. Groves. Thank you. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member
Chaffetz, other subcommittee members, I am happy to be here to
testify with regard to the master address file for the 2010
census.
When I testified here on September 22nd, I noted at that
time a set of professional judgments about the assessment of
the 2010 preparations, and I noted at the end of this month we
would be finished with our internal evaluation of the master
address file. I realize the schedules of the committee didn't
work to hit that time exactly right. I will tell you as much as
we know, I promise today, but there is still work to be done,
and I would be happy to meet with the full committee or any
subset when we have that full report ready.
Let me begin by reminding us of what the master address
file is. It is literally an inventory of all the addresses and
descriptions of units, along with their geographical locations.
It is the source of the mailing of all the questionnaires and
delivery of the decennial forms, so it is a big deal for the
2010 census, and the quality of that master address file is
appropriately a target of this subcommittee's scrutiny.
There are three major quality criteria that I will talk
about today. One is its completeness, its coverage, does it
contain all of the housing units in the United States? Second,
are the addresses on each of those housing units complete, or
the physical descriptions? Can we mail or find the housing
units in our later operations? And then third, do we know where
these units are? Is the spatial accuracy what we need to have
for a successful census?
We have done three important things over the decade I think
it is important to know that were designed to improve the
quality of the master address file. The first thing that was
done is a reflection of what happened in 2000. It was a result
of the 2000 census that there were more duplicates in this
frame than were expected. One source of the duplicates had to
do with group quarters housing units, and we have blended those
two lists together with the hope that will reduce the kind of
duplication we found in 2000.
We have realigned all the streets and roads in the country
to reflect changes over the decade, and we are fulling using,
in cooperation with the Postal Service, codes that determine
how best to get forms to particular addresses, whether we
should mail them or deliver them ourselves.
We have also been updating this frame throughout the decade
through, again, a cooperation with the Postal Service on the
delivery sequence file, and then through our own field work in
the American community survey and other surveys, especially in
rural areas.
Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the so-called LUCA program,
which is the local update of census addresses. It plays, as you
know, a critical role. It is a key, both symbolic and real,
cooperation with local and State governments throughout the
country, as well as tribal governments. This is an important
part of building the master address file.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, along with
Representative Maloney, former ranking member of the
subcommittee, Michael Turner, Representative Michael Thompson,
and a former ranking member of the full committee,
Representative Tom Davis, for your support last year. You wrote
a Dear Colleague letter in March and you helped to spread the
word about the LUCA program to your colleagues on the Hill, and
it helped, as you will see in just a few minutes.
We invited in 2007 about 40,000 different tribal, State,
and local governments to participate in this local program.
About 12,000, 11,500 of them, registered. About 29 percent of
the governments are represented by that 11,000. That is a
disappointing number when you first see that, but those
governments represent about 92 percent of the housing units in
the country. So that is kind of the first evaluation of LUCA
that one could mount.
One way to evaluate it is to compare it to what happened in
2000. In 2000 we had about 18,000 governments registered. They
represented less than 92 percent of the total housing units in
the country. So overall on participation in LUCA we had greater
participation this decade than last, and that is something that
we are grateful for.
We received submissions reflecting changes to our address
list from those local governments from about 79 percent of the
governments that had registered. That is about 8,100
governments. This compares to about 67 percent submission in
the 1998 LUCA and 48 percent in the 1999 LUCA. So once again
the participation, the submission of these lists to us from the
local governments was somewhat better than in 2000, another
good sign.
We then matched these addresses supplied by local
governments against the master address file and we sent out all
those addresses for the address canvassing operation that took
place in the summer.
Let me mention a couple of things about other improvements
in the local update program. We had a single cycle of review.
This reduced the complexity of participating governments. We
had a longer review period, 120 days versus 90. We allowed a
variety of ways to participate that seemed to fit the different
problems local governments were facing. We provided easy to use
software that they could download on their desktops to help.
And for the first time we allowed State governments to
represent lower governments within their States. That partially
explains the lower count of participation of governments but
the higher percentage of housing units represented.
The preliminary figures from this program show that about 8
million addresses were provisionally added to the master
address file for verification. Thirty million of the addresses
submitted by the local update program matched addresses already
on the file, and we had 2 million corrections to addresses.
Then, as you know, over the summer in 2009 Census Bureau
staff walked every street and road in the country and visited
145 million locations that consisted of the 145 million units
on the then master address file. The only areas that we omitted
from this were remote Alaska and parts of Maine that represent
about 35,000 households of the 134 million.
I can give you the results of the address canvassing work.
About 98 million addresses on that list of 145 million were
verified as is. Twenty million were corrected. Usually that was
a street name correction, small changes. Five million were
moved to another block. Ten million were added. They weren't on
the address list before and they weren't on the LUCA submission
list. So at the current time, the master address file consists
of about 134 million records. That turns out to match
independent estimates of the housing unit count. That is a good
sign so far in our comparisons.
The figures show that about 21 million addresses fall into
either a delete or duplicate or non-residential category.
Sixteen million of those were deletes; that is, we couldn't
find them when we got out there. And about 4 million were
duplicates that were found to exist in other places in the
master address file. About a million of the addresses we had on
the list were non-residential. They have now been omitted.
Two million of them were what we called other living
quarters. These are things like assisted living facilities,
dormitories, group homes. We sort of set those aside, and right
now as we speak there are people visiting those group quarters,
because that was a problem in 2000, making sure we had all the
unit identifications right in those group facilities. We are
out there right now making sure we have correct unit
identifiers, and that is going to pay off come spring when we
do the measurement.
With respect to the results of address canvassing on the
local update cases, themselves, our initial results show that
about 66 percent of the LUCA addresses were deleted, identified
as duplicate, or found to be non-residential. About 29 percent
of the addresses were verified, corrected, or moved, and about
5 percent were unresolved in address canvassing but will remain
in the enumeration universe.
We are now reviewing this operation, as I said at the
opening, and I am happy to get back to you when we have all of
the evaluative results on that program.
You know that we have other programs that will improve
hopefully the master address file. We are right now out asking
the same local governments to give us new construction updates.
We have invited about 29,000 governments to participate in
this. About 15,000 have already said yes, and we are off and
running on that.
We are also going to make other updates to this file. We
are not through for 2010. We will get other updates from the
U.S. Postal Service, from the delivery sequence file. We are
going to have a count review program that is going to go out
early in 2010, and then we are going to have updates from other
field operations. Our attempt in this is to get the most up-to-
date master address file we can.
So let me sum up. I said there are three evaluative
criteria for the master address file. Coverage is first.
Relative to 2000 I noted that fewer governments participated in
the local update program but they represented a higher
proportion of all addresses in the country than 2000. I noted
that State and local governments provided addresses that form
about 2 percent of the total valid addresses on the file after
address canvassing. And after address canvassing the total
number of units on the file is comparable to an independent
estimate of the count of housing units in the country.
The second criteria is the completeness of addresses, and
we found about 2 million other living quarters that are now
being revisited to get those addresses right, those identifiers
right. We are expecting a lot of these to revert to a single
housing unit by the time we are through with this operation.
We continue to evaluate the current status of the master
address file, and I am hopeful that I could talk more about
this in a later hearing in front of this committee.
I thank the committee for this opportunity to testify and
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Groves follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Dr. Groves. We know you hit the ground
running at the Census Bureau, and we thank you for your
service.
Mr. Goldenkoff, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF
Mr. Goldenkoff. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McHenry,
members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to
discuss the Census Bureau's progress in building a complete and
accurate address list. As you know, a quality address list,
along with precise maps, are key to a successful census. If the
Bureau's address lists and maps are inaccurate, people can be
missed, counted more than once, or included in the wrong
location.
That said, compiling an accurate address list is no easy
task. One reason for this is that people can reside in hidden
and non-traditional housing units such as converted attics and
basements, as well as in cars, boats, trailers, motels, tent
cities, and labor camps.
While these living arrangements have long existed, the
large number of foreclosures the Nation has recently
experienced, as well as the natural disasters that have hit the
Gulf Coast and other regions, have likely increased the number
of people living in less conventional housing.
In addition to housing units, which include single-family
homes, apartments, and mobile homes, many people also reside in
facilities called group quarters, which include prisons,
dormitories, nursing homes, and similar locations.
The Bureau's database of the Nation's roughly 140 million
addresses is called the master address file [MAF]. As
requested, my testimony will describe the preliminary results
of three MAF building operations that can help locate hidden
housing units and other traditionally hard-to-count
populations. The operations we reviewed are LUCA, address
canvassing, and group quarters validation.
I will also provide an update on the IT systems the Bureau
will use to update and extract information from the MAF
database.
My testimony today has two main points. First, the Bureau
goes to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the address
file using multiple operations that include partnerships with
the Postal Service, extensive field verifications, and numerous
other activities. Second, the operations we reviewed generally
proceeded as planned and we did not observe any significant
operational setbacks.
Still, the overall effectiveness of the Bureau's efforts
will not be known until later in the census when the Bureau
completes various assessments.
Turning first to LUCA, the Bureau partnered with State,
local, and tribal governments, tapping into their knowledge of
local populations and housing conditions in order to develop a
more complete and accurate address list. More than 8,000
jurisdictions participated in the program between November 2007
and March 2008. However, LUCA submissions generated a
relatively small percentage of additions to the MAF. For
example, of around 36 million potential additions that
localities submitted, just 2.4 million or 7 percent were new
addresses not already in the MAF. The others were duplicate
addresses, nonexistent or nonresidential.
Address canvassing finished ahead of schedule, in part
because of improvements the Bureau made to the hand-held
computers used to collect data, as well as because of lower
than expected employee turnover. Nevertheless, the operation
exceeded its original budget estimate of $356 million by $88
million, a cost overrun of 25 percent.
A key reason for the overrun was that the Bureau did not
update its cost estimates to reflect changes to the address
canvassing workload. Further, the Bureau did not follow its
staffing strategy and hired too many listers.
Recognizing the difficulties associated with address
canvassing in the hurricane affected areas along the Gulf
Coast, the Bureau developed supplemental training materials to
help listers identify addresses where people are or may be
living when census questionnaires are distributed early next
year. For example, the materials noted that people might be
living in trailers, homes marked for demolition, and
nonresidential spaces such as storage areas above restaurants.
To help ensure group quarters are accurately included in
the census, the Bureau is conducting an operation called group
quarters validation, which is going on right now. The Census
Bureau developed and tested new procedures to improve how it
identifies and counts these facilities based on lessons learned
from the 2000 census.
With respect to the automated system that supports the MAF,
although the Bureau has improved aspects of its IT management,
we continue to be concerned about the lack of finalized test
plans, incomplete metrics to gauge progress, and an aggressive
testing and implementation schedule going forward.
In summary, the Bureau has taken extraordinary measures to
produce a quality address list and associated maps. Still,
accurately locating each and every dwelling in the Nation is an
inherently challenging endeavor, and the overall quality of the
Bureau's address list will not be known until later in the
census when the Bureau completes the assessments that Dr.
Groves mentioned.
Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and members of the
subcommittee, this concludes my remarks. I will be happy to
answer any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Mr. Goldenkoff.
Mr. Zinser, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TODD ZINSER
Ms. Zinser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
McHenry, members of the subcommittee. We appreciate the
opportunity to testify today about the Census Bureau's master
address file.
My testimony covers three points, Mr. Chairman.
First, building the master address file is an enormously
important and enormously complex undertaking. Second, my office
has focused a lot of our work on the Census operations used to
build the file, and, not surprisingly given the enormity of the
task, the operations are prone to errors and omissions. Third,
Census continues to work very hard to carry out operations to
improve the master address file and compensate for those errors
and omissions, and the execution of those operations is
critically important.
The Census Bureau describes an accurate, comprehensive, and
timely list as one of the best predictors of a successful
census. Errors on the master address file can cause people to
be missed or counted more than once, as well as increase cost
and the public burden by requiring enumerators to visit non-
existent or duplicate locations during the non-response
followup operation.
After the 2000 census the Bureau launched an ambitious plan
to maintain and update both the master address file and the
census maps through a variety of operations. They accomplished
some of their plans, but still relied on a massive address
canvassing operation at the end of the decade as the primary
operation for verifying, updating, or deleting addresses,
adding missing addresses, updating streets on the maps, and
geo-coding every structure. Address canvassing employed 140,000
temporary workers and cost over $400 million, not including the
cost of the hand-held computers.
Our work over the decade on the master address file has
identified consistent problems. We observed the 2006 site test
in Austin and Cheyenne River Reservation, the 2008 dress
rehearsal, and the address canvassing operation, itself. My
written statement includes examples of the types of errors and
omission we observed in those operations, including missing,
duplicate, and erroneous master address file addresses,
problems with listers not following procedures, and other
problems with process and execution. Our work in this area has
caused us to have concerns about the overall quality of the
address list.
The Census Bureau has operations designed to update the
2009 address list and potentially mitigate some of the issues
that affect master address file reliability. These include
group quarters validation, the LUCA appeals process, new
construction adds, and update leave and update enumerate. These
represent some of the most significant efforts planned and
underway to strengthen and update the master address file. It
is critically important that the Bureau execute these
operations well. I believe the Census is working hard to do so.
However, if we were to be asked what other actions the
Census Bureau could take at this point, we would offer two
suggestions that could assess the quality of the master address
file right now and provide information that could be used in
subsequent improvement operations and potentially provide the
opportunity for additional address list corrections.
First, Census should take advantage of housing unit
estimates to help assess master address file quality. For the
past 20 years, the Bureau has produced annual estimates of
housing units for States, counties, and local governments.
These statistics are used as controls for several Census Bureau
surveys and could be used for the decennial as benchmarks
against which potential over- or under-counting of housing
could be measured. For example, after census 2000, count
comparisons for over 800 of the Nation's most rural counties
indicated potential under-coverage in 275 of the counties. Use
of housing estimates could identify these types of
discrepancies now, before the decennial census, and perhaps
steps could be taken to address them.
Second, the Bureau could make greater use of administrative
records as another source for checking address quality. Such
records collected by all levels of Government and the private
sector are used by census in conducting several of its
statistical operations. By matching current administrative
records to the master address file, Census could both assess
master address file quality and potentially add missing
addresses.
Even if the Bureau determines that incorporating missed
addresses identified in this process would not be feasible at
this stage of the decennial, there would still be benefits to
assessing the address file and identifying areas where
addresses are missing. It would allow subsequent field
operations to be alerted on a targeted basis of the high
potential for an accurate list for that area and the need for
greater attention to those areas.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my summary, and I would be
happy to respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zinser follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much, Mr. Zinser.
Ms. Jacobs, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF ILENE JACOBS
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member McHenry and members of the subcommittee, for giving me
this opportunity to speak to you today about the master address
file and to recommend improvements with respect to the
development of the master address file.
I was glad to hear Dr. Groves refer to the master address
file as a big deal, and I would like to reiterate his
statement. It is a very big deal, particularly to the very
hard-to-count populations that we represent throughout the 21
rural offices of California Rural Legal Assistance. Our mission
is to ameliorate rural poverty and to ensure that rural
communities have access to justice and the provision of basic
human rights; therefore, we very much understand the importance
of an accurate census and having accurate census data, which
starts with an accurate master address file.
I would like to speak about the adverse impact in the
communities we represent of having a less-than-accurate master
address file and make some very practical recommendations for
improvements.
We represent the hardest-to-count populations in the
hardest-to-locate housing. We represent farm workers, the rural
poor, immigrants, very diverse racial and ethnic groups,
linguistically isolated populations, elderly, disabled, and
most recently many foreclosure victims throughout rural
California.
An inaccurate master address file in a mail-out/mail-back
census means that our clients do not have adequate housing,
they lack health care, they don't have job training, they have
fewer educational opportunities, lower literacy, they have
fewer needed municipal services like basic water and sewer,
they lack community and economic development programs and
resources, and it is harder to enforce the fundamental rights
that they have guaranteed by law.
The direct impact on local government is very serious,
because they lack the ability to meet the pressing needs of the
hardest-to-count populations. There are social and economic
costs not only to our clients but to the local governments that
are there to serve them.
My prepared statement describes the structural bias in the
development of the master address file. My involvement with the
Census Bureau and concern about the master address file started
when, after the 1990 census, we participated in a study that
measured an at least 50 percent what we called mega-under-count
of migrant and seasonal farm workers, and we attribute much of
that mega-under-count to missing housing units. Not
exclusively, but a significant part of that.
The structural bias in the development of the master
address file has not been solved. I give a lot of credit to the
Census Bureau for making improvements in instructions to
address listers about hidden housing units and what types of
units to include in the address file, but we still have the
problem of complete omission of entire households because, in
the hardest-to-count areas and areas of high concentration of
hidden housing units, the master address file is incomplete.
And if the master address file for 2010 is incomplete, that
means that the master address file for use in the American
community survey, Census Bureau's replacement for the long
form, also will be incomplete, and that will result not only in
omission of housing units but omission of people, and it will
carry into the American community survey a skewed set of
demographic characteristics of the most needy populations,
particularly diverse racial and ethnic groups and the hardest-
to-count populations that we represent.
I have made five key points and five key recommendations in
our written testimony.
First, the hard-to-locate housing units in rural California
and elsewhere need to be understood. They are backyard chicken
coops, they are illegal garages, they are tool sheds that are
rented out to families to live in, they are single family units
and apartments that are subdivided into essentially one-room-
per-complex household, and that can be a family or an extended
family per room in a six-apartment dwelling.
They are motel rooms that are occupied by 20 migrant and
seasonal farm workers at a time. They are trailer encampments.
They are tarps and lean-tos built into canyons and the kind of
housing that is unacceptable in this country, but,
nevertheless, it is spread throughout rural California, and
there are many similarities to concentrated urban areas when we
talk about these hidden and illegal housing units.
In our study after the 2000 census--and I refer to that in
my written testimony--we found that a very high percentage of
these types of units were missed in the seven communities that
we evaluated using the Census Bureau's methodology.
Second, address canvassing does not adequately identify
these units, albeit improvements have been made.
Third, ultimately, as I said, it skews the population
profile because the hidden units tend to be occupied by the
hardest-to-count populations who then become very difficult to
profile in the American community survey. This has a direct
impact on all of our communities throughout the country, and it
can be addressed in 2010 and in the ACS.
We first recommend that the Census Bureau adopt the address
listing protocol that we used in 2000 in the L.A. region to
count migrant and seasonal farm worker units and hidden units,
that they implement this address listing protocol which was
recognized by the GAO in its report on farm workers, and would
extend to other hard-to-count populations.
Second, that the Census Bureau work with the regional
offices, census partners, community-based organizations, and
local governments to identify areas of high concentrations of
hard-to-locate housing units and target those for tool kit
enumeration operations, and by that I mean specifically
utilizing update leave and update enumerate operations within
mail-out/mail-back areas, not only in remote areas, because
that is where the update leave and update enumerate type
operations are utilized. I think they can be effectively
utilized within hard-to-count and mail-out/mail-back areas.
We also should be using the knowledge of community-based
organizations in the LUCA process, which presently the Census
Bureau does not do, and the master address file should be
evaluated in 2010 in areas of a high concentration of hard-to-
locate housing units. That evaluation then could be used to
carry over the best practices into the American communities
survey.
I know I have run out of time and I apologize for that.
There is a lot more I could say but I won't. I thank you very
much for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacobs follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Perhaps we will have questions, but thank you,
Ms. Jacobs, and thank the entire panel for their testimony.
I will now go to the ranking member, who has an opening
statement, and you can also proceed into your questions.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Clay. You are welcome.
Mr. McHenry. And thank you all for coming back and
testifying, Dr. Groves, Mr. Goldenkoff in particular, who have
been regular in being with us, and I certainly appreciate that.
Dr. Groves, thank you for following through on your
commitment to testify frequently and keep us apprised of the
process. I do appreciate all efforts that you have made. But I
do think there has been some troubling news that we have seen
since the Senate hearing on October 7th, and that this
committee was not previously made aware of. First, the cost
overruns, the significant cost overruns, I know they are not
available, the cost estimates for address canvassing in your
last testimony, Dr. Groves, but certainly 25 percent, going
over budget by 25 percent is very significant.
Second, although Dr. Groves had informed us at the last
census hearing that better cost estimation and control was
needed, the Bureau admitted on October 7th that its models were
grossly inadequate and can translate into future budgetary
problems if not immediately addressed.
Third is the GAO study found that the Bureau's
fingerprinting process for temporary workers was deeply flawed
and could potentially result in criminals being hired as
enumerators.
While I'm disappointed that these issues were not brought
to our attention, I have no doubt that the Bureau is actively
working to go through and create plans, operating procedures,
and budgets that are accurate and proper.
But, having said that, there are some successes, as the GAO
report indicates and as Dr. Groves' testimony indicates, as
well. The timely and comprehensive completion of address
canvassing was certainly a huge success, and the partnership
programs, the media campaign efforts have been conducted in an
unprecedented level, as no previous census has seen, reaching
out to diverse groups of people across this country. And the
first major wave of recruitment has met with an applicant pool
that was much larger and more qualified than expected, although
the GAO outlined some challenges with that, as well.
The Bureau has also started with a 2010 local update of
census addresses [LUCA], as you all have testified to, that has
been the most effective to date. That is certainly good news,
and updating the master address file with that information is
certainly good.
I want to reiterate my commitment to ensure that the Bureau
stays on track with its planning, execution of the 2010 census.
Dr. Groves, you should not limit your communication on
issues of concern to just public hearings. We would certainly
appreciate whatever updates you can give us so that certain
things like the budget overrun, we don't have to find out about
through newspapers.
As Chairman Clay has said and I will reiterate, our doors
are open. I think you will find that not just the ranking
member and the chairman on this committee have their doors
open, but all the committee members. We want to make sure that
this is the most accurate census in our Nation's history, and I
think we have the capacity to do that. As Mr. Mesenborg and Dr.
Groves have testified, that is their intent and the Bureau's
intent.
So thank you for your testimony. I look forward to hearing
your answers to questions.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Patrick T. McHenry
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McHenry. With that, Mr. Chairman, would you like me to
just go right into questions?
Mr. Clay. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Thank you.
Dr. Groves, rehiring the temporary workers that address the
address canvassing, I know that is certainly what you testified
to before. In terms of fingerprinting, what procedure will
these rehires go through?
Dr. Groves. I want to make sure I got the question. Are you
looking forward to non-response followup?
Mr. McHenry. Yes. I'm sorry. Going forward, when
approximately 570,000, 600,000 are hired for the non-response
followup, you will be taking applicants from the original
address canvassing pool first, of course, because they have
gone through the Bureau training. What is the procedure to
check their criminal records?
Dr. Groves. Well, let me step back a couple of steps to
make sure that I am answering your question fully. The
procedures on the fingerprinting are going through a critical
review right now.
Mr. McHenry. Yes.
Dr. Groves. We are going to change some of those
procedures, with the aspiration that we reduce the problem that
we found in address canvassing, which was a failure to read
fingerprints from some people.
I want to remind the committee that the process by which we
hire someone involves, first, their submission and verification
of IDs that provide a Social Security number, a name, sex, and
we submit that to the FBI. No one has worked on the decennial
census nor will work on the decennial census without passing
that name check. That will remain true.
In 2000 only that check was used, and now we are adding
this fingerprinting process.
Mr. McHenry. Well, with adding the fingerprinting
procedure--and I am sure there are other questions about this
procedure, and we will get to that--but will all these folks
that are re-hired for non-response followup, will they be re-
fingerprinted or will you use their original fingerprint and
resubmit it?
Dr. Groves. It is our current intention for those who had
fingerprints read, submitted, accepted by the FBI, we will use
those prints. For those who didn't have reads on their
fingerprints, we will again go through the fingerprinting
process.
Mr. McHenry. OK.
Dr. Groves. Now, I should note that not all of them will be
re-hired. Many of them have gotten other jobs and so on.
Mr. McHenry. Yes.
Dr. Groves. The exact proportion of rehires versus new
hires isn't really known at this point.
Mr. McHenry. OK. And the procedure with those that have
fingerprints that cannot be read, will they be hired like they
were hired in this address change?
Dr. Groves. That is the standards we are after. I don't
know how strongly I can say this, Congressman, but the safety
of the U.S. public is of paramount interest to us, and I am
committed to doing everything I can to achieve that.
We have been working with the FBI after address canvassing
and we have made various changes, and they are, under the
guidance of the FBI--you know, what happens is that as you age,
as all of us age, our fingerprints get harder to read.
Mr. McHenry. True.
Dr. Groves. The people who didn't have read fingerprints
tend to be older and tend to be female, empirically.
Mr. McHenry. Yes.
Dr. Groves. So older women have harder problems in getting
fingerprints read.
Mr. McHenry. My time is limited. I know this is important,
but if you could submit for this committee----
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to give you a detailed list of
things we are doing.
Mr. McHenry. Because I think the GAO in their report would
like to see that, as well.
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to do so.
Mr. McHenry. I have another additional thing. I read in USA
Today yesterday that the expected response rate for mail, the
initial form that will be mailed out on census day, is 64
percent. This is, I think, new information. It was 67 percent
in 2000. There have been some very substantial changes in that.
We are re-mailing, in essence, those that do not respond via
mail, which was not done in 2000, so the response rate was
supposed to be better than it was in 2000 because of that
procedure, alone. Why has this been reduced? The 3 percent
would equal over $100 million by the initial cost estimates
that we have, so it is real money we are talking about.
Dr. Groves. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. And I want to understand why this wasn't
brought to our attention earlier and what your answer is on
that, as well.
Dr. Groves. Yes. First of all, the 64 percent number I
didn't approve so I don't know where that number came from. We
are actually estimating that number over and over again. That
is a number that will be re-estimated over the coming months.
Second, it is important and relevant for the committee to
know that the response rates of every major national survey in
the United States and every western country is declining. Those
response rates are declining each year. The American community
survey on the mail return rate is declining at between 0.5 and
1 percentage point a year. We have a population that is tougher
to measure than it was in 2000. We have, indeed, put in the
design features you talked about that go in the other direction
that should push it up, but the big changes in the population
is a massive rock to push up the hill and we don't know yet how
well these design features will work.
Mr. McHenry. I mean, I read the press report that says
Census Bureau analysis, which I'd like to know what report----
Dr. Groves. Well, there are a lot of Census Bureau
analyses.
Mr. McHenry. Well, I'd like to see what you would submit as
in what you think the result would be, because certainly with
your history you certainly have specialized knowledge in this.
We would like to have that just----
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to.
Mr. McHenry. OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.
Dr. Groves, we know that the accuracy of the master address
list relies heavily on close partnership between the Bureau and
local governments. Looking to the future, this partnership will
again be called upon year after year to help the Bureau produce
accurate annual estimates. We know that the Bureau is altering
the census challenge methodology. Will the census be working
with local government officials like planners in developing the
new methodology? And if so, how?
Dr. Groves. I want to make sure I understand the question,
Congressman. Are you talking about the population estimates
program?
Mr. Clay. Yes.
Dr. Groves. OK. Well, as you know, the population estimates
program is undergoing review. We have had outside experts in. I
am very interested in this program, to improve it over the
coming decade. We are going to have a lot more dialog about how
best to do that. It is a set of technical issues about how, in
the middle of the decade, you can get the best estimates.
The procedures that have been used to work cooperatively
with communities to update those estimates are worth reviewing.
There are complaints kind of on both sides that ought to be
aired, and I want that to happen, and I can assure you that
will be an open process.
Mr. Clay. Can the new construction program be expanded to
include all additional addresses that cities might have missed
in the LUCA process?
Dr. Groves. Well, as you know, the new construction program
is limited to those local governments that have access to new
construction administrative records, and that is a smaller set
than, for example, the State governments aren't used for that
purpose.
Right now under the current legislation we are limited to
governmental entities providing us those updates, but the world
is changing and it is worth talking about the future in various
ways.
Mr. Clay. You know, we are aware that the Census plans to
hand-deliver 1.2 million questionnaires to residents in the
Gulf region. This is a great start, but my concern is the
followup. With the lack of mail receptacles and home telephone
service in some of the affected areas, what additional measures
will be taken for non-response followup?
Dr. Groves. You know, Congressman, I just spent yesterday
at our facility that is assembling the packets for the update.
We call this update leave. It is really cool. You ought to
visit it some time. But there are big plastic bags that contain
little plastic bags that have questionnaires and a letter from
me inside, so they are protected from the rain. They have
little hooks on them so you can hook it inside a screen door if
you don't have a mailbox of a house that is clearly
inhabitable, thinking of the Gulf Coast areas you were just
talking about.
Mr. Clay. Sure.
Dr. Groves. So I think we are thinking about the same
things, and so far I think we are prepared for that. I can't
wait to see how well that works. It is an area that is rapidly
changing, as you know.
Mr. Clay. I know on one of my field visits to the Gulf
Coast region I was told by census workers that they, in some
areas, they have to take boats into the bayou and other places
in order to actually, I guess, verify addresses first, and now
I guess they will have to drop those packages off by boat also.
Dr. Groves. You would not believe the kind of
transportation our enumerators are seeking. We also had a
request for mules on some Indian reservations, because you
literally cannot drive a four wheel drive vehicle up to some of
the lodging.
Mr. Clay. OK.
Dr. Groves. So we do a lot of efforts that are unusual.
Mr. Clay. Wow, you are really preparing for this, aren't
you? Please detail the update and leave program that is
utilized in rural and Gulf Coast areas. Upon recognition of the
addresses of hidden housing units, will there be enough time to
input these found addresses before non-response followup?
Dr. Groves. I want to get your question right. Could you
repeat that? I want to make sure I understand effectively.
Mr. Clay. Detail the update leave program.
Dr. Groves. OK.
Mr. Clay. That is utilized in rural and Gulf regions.
Dr. Groves. In the Gulf Coast areas, say take New Orleans,
in Orleans, Planquemine, and St. Bernard Parishes, these were
almost all mail-out/mail-back in 2000. With the collaboration
of local government and civic leaders, we have identified all
three of those parishes are going to be entirely update leave,
so we will have people on the streets going structure-by-
structure. When a structure, according to a set of fixed rules,
is defined as habitable, they will put a questionnaire on those
structures.
In areas of, say, Tammany Parish, the same thing will
happen. So as you get away from the coast things get a little
better, and there are certain areas that we will do update
leave, but they may be surrounded by areas that are mail-out/
mail-back, and all of this is designed to be done in
conjunction with local leaders who know what is happening.
This is a rapidly changing thing. People are building
houses now in New Orleans especially, and we have to be very
current to get it right.
Mr. Clay. And you did say St. Bernard Parish?
Dr. Groves. St. Bernard's is fully update leave.
Mr. Clay. Well, it just causes me to ask the question then:
could this technique be applied in hard-to-count urban areas?
Dr. Groves. It could, indeed, and a thing that is new---
actually this is relevant to Ms. Jacobs' testimony--one thing
that is greatly expanded this decade I think is really
something that is neat, and that is, for all of the census
tracts--these are small geographical areas that were found to
be hard to enumerate in 2000--there is a special plan for every
tract. We have people who have already driven every street of
those hard-to-enumerate tracts, and they have looked at every
house on the tract, and they have asked the question how best
to enumerate this area. If it is a mail-out/mail-back area that
they are concerned about, they will do separate outreach
efforts to encourage response. If there are other things going
on, they have the freedom to tailor some of the methods they
will use.
I am very hopeful that this kind of customization down to
the local level could pay off.
Mr. Clay. That sounds impressive. Thank you for your
response.
We will now go to the gentleman from Georgia for 5 minutes,
Mr. Westmoreland.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First question is for Ms. Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs, in your
written testimony here I noted that I guess it was in 2003 your
organization identified approximately 4,000 units that were not
in the MAF, and this was before Mr. Groves, but with your
working with the Census Bureau I think about 75 percent of them
or a little over 3,000 of them were included in the MAF. Was
this a satisfactory outcome for you?
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you for the question, Mr. Westmoreland.
We were, of course, thrilled with that outcome, but that
outcome was, first of all, limited to the Los Angeles region
and, second of all, it was based on a program that we undertook
through our education and outreach program in 2000 and funded
research. That was unusual, and it was, I would say, unique.
And it has not been otherwise applied by the Census Bureau. We
had census outreach workers who were hired by our organization
identifying units that we thought had been missed or were
highly likely to be missed, and it was only because the L.A.
region was willing to cooperate in developing this address
listing protocol with us and was willing to then take our 4,000
units back, compare them to the master address file to which we
had no access, of course, and then able to add units. But that
was not something that had been necessarily approved by
headquarters nor has it since been implemented by headquarters
nor has it been approved or implemented in any other region, to
our knowledge. But I think that is an approach that certainly
could be used, and when I referred in my oral testimony to the
address listing protocol that is what I meant.
I think that the Bureau has implemented a similar protocol
for the targeted non-sheltered outdoor locations, but that is
going to be essentially a 1-day operation, and it is primarily
to reach the homeless. It will not necessarily reach any of the
hardest-to-count populations that we are concerned about.
Mr. Westmoreland. I noticed that in Dr. Groves' testimony I
believe he said that there was an outreach to approximately
28,000 I guess different governments, whether it is city,
county, State, or tribal, or whatever. Only about 14,000 of
those had responded to, I believe, being in the program. Are
you encouraging some of the local governments where you are at,
because I know I read your protocol and what you are talking
about, people being familiar with the area and the community
being involved in this. Do you see a role for some of these
governments to play in it that could help in that?
Ms. Jacobs. Certainly yes, and I think that the Census
Bureau has a good partnership program, and CRLA community
outreach workers are a part of that program. We participate on
complete count committees in many local jurisdictions, and we
encourage local jurisdictions to participate.
One of the limitations of LUCA, however, is that community-
based organizations cannot participate. I think it would be an
enormous benefit to local governments, as well as to the Census
Bureau, to make use of the knowledge of community-based
organizations on the ground in those communities that could
really provide assistance to very strapped local governments.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you.
Dr. Groves, it is good to see you again. We do appreciate
your filling of your commitment to come in front of us often
and let us ask you questions.
One comment I will make, you know, Mr. McHenry mentioned
the cost overruns. I will tell you that I have had several
people across the country in the real estate business tell me
that the Census Bureau in different locations was paying
anywhere from $52 to $55 a square foot for office buildings,
and at some point if you want to come by the office I will give
you some of those locations, because right now typical office
space is anywhere from $8 to $10 a foot, so you might want to
check some of that out for your cost overrun.
But, Dr. Groves, does the Census Bureau pay any outside
groups to add addresses to this master address file? Do you
have a contract with anybody, pay anybody to do that?
Dr. Groves. To add addresses to the file?
Mr. Westmoreland. Yes.
Dr. Groves. The base of the master address file for this
decade started with the 2000 census master address file. If you
go back into the history of this, we assemble records in that
decade from various commercial sources, but we have been
updating that now, so to know the origin of actually every
address in there is kind of tough at this point. But this
operation that we have done over this decade has relied heavily
on the Postal Service. I don't know how you count that in your
thoughts, but that has been a chief updating source for us.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. And one final question. It will be a
short one, I think. How do you think the budget overruns in
conducting the address canvassing over the summer will impact
your ability to effectively administer the 2010 census?
Dr. Groves. Those budget overruns are intolerable to me,
Congressman, and I believe, as I mentioned previously I think
to the committee, that part of it was from a flaw in the cost
modeling logic. That logic has been changed. Our big operation
going forward, as you know, is the non-response followup
operation. We are undergoing two independent cost modeling
schemes. One has been partially completed, the other is going
on now. I want to compare multiple ways of estimating the cost,
because I think that is the way to protect your estimation.
This is a very complicated process. I don't want to imply
that it is easy to do. It is very important, though, to get
this right.
I am pleased that this operation that we are doing right
now called group quarters validation, where we are going out to
2 million addresses, appears to be on time, on budget, and that
is a good thing. We can't tolerate these kind of overruns in
our big operation, and it is not going to happen on my watch as
long as I am in this position, anyway, I will tell you.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Westmoreland.
Mr. Zinser, have you had further results or reviews of the
paper-based operations control system? If so, please detail
some of your findings.
Ms. Zinser. Sir, we don't have any further results from the
review of the paper-based operations control system, but we
include that system as a top risk to the census because of the
late change to paper-based operations. There are a lot of
changes that have to be done to that system, and that has to be
a front and center focus item for the census, and we count that
as a major factor in trying to determine whether or not the
costs are going to be contained.
Mr. Clay. I see. Dr. Groves, did you want to add anything?
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to comment. I agree. It is
deserving of scrutiny by my two colleagues here and me
continuously.
Mr. Clay. OK.
Dr. Groves. We have a big test, I want to announce, coming
up around Thanksgiving. It is a big deal for us. We have to hit
that. We hope to break the system in Thanksgiving in order to
make sure it is robust for the real use.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for that response.
Mr. Zinser, how can the non-response followup operations be
made more efficient? Please respond to the question in terms of
cost and effectiveness. You do have some history with which to
evaluate this, I assume?
Ms. Zinser. I didn't catch the last part of the question,
sir.
Mr. Clay. I'm asking if you have any history to evaluate
the non-response followup, its effectiveness and cost
efficiency.
Ms. Zinser. Yes, sir, I think our plan for evaluating non-
response followup is similar to how we handled address
canvassing is that we dispatched teams out to the field to
actually observe the non-response followup operation, and by
putting our folks out in the field and observing how the
enumerators are operating, we hope to identify problems early,
alert the Census Bureau to those problems, and then they make
changes. We did that, for example, with address canvassing when
we observed a number of listers in five different regions that
we were in not following procedures. They were supposed to go
up and knock on the door so they could get a good map spot with
the hand-held computer. They weren't doing that. We alerted the
Census Bureau and they took corrective action.
I think that is pretty much our strategy for covering non-
response followup.
Mr. Clay. To what degree will the accuracy of the master
address file be affected by the Census Bureau's inability to
track schedules, costs, and risk management activities of this
endeavor? Do you have any figures for this?
Ms. Zinser. I don't think I have any figures for that, sir,
but the construction of the master address file, as we have all
testified here this morning, is a key operation, and what our
suggestion is is that they do some data analysis of the quality
of the master address file right now to include using housing
unit estimates and some administrative records to match against
the master address file to try to target those areas where
there might be problems with the quality of the file.
Mr. Clay. What specific risk management activities are
behind schedule with regard to the master address file?
Ms. Zinser. Are behind schedule?
Mr. Clay. Yes.
Ms. Zinser. Well, the Census Bureau has identified probably
somewhere in the area of 24 high-risk areas, and they are
developing contingency plans for probably around 11 of those.
One of those is called the Housing Unit Duplicates and Misses.
It is a contingency plan that they are working on, but it is
not completed, and I don't think they have any scheduled date
for completing it, so I would list that as a key area to get
some progress on.
Mr. Clay. I see. Thank you for that response.
Mr. Goldenkoff, is it true that the FBI has continued to
express concerns regarding the Bureau's poor paper ink
fingerprinting quality? Can the FBI guarantee a quick turn-
around of check results following the fingerprint submissions?
And if the FBI cannot guarantee a quick turn-around, what is
the Bureau's contingency plan?
Mr. Goldenkoff. I'm not aware of any contingency plan that
the Bureau would have if there is no quick turn-around. These
operations are very short-lived and very often the people are
hired and will be hired during non-response followup, during
the operation or right before it is to begin, so it is just
really a very short window that the Bureau would have in order
to conduct these fingerprints and get the results back.
Mr. Clay. How can best practices be utilized to ensure the
Bureau provides a more reliable cost estimate for additional
endeavors such as non-response followup, especially in light of
the 25 percent over budget for address canvassing?
Mr. Goldenkoff. Well, certainly the Bureau does need to
rely on best practices and employ them. GAO has put out a guide
to best practices for cost estimation. This has been a
longstanding weakness with the Bureau. What we have seen is
that the Bureau's cost estimates have lacked detailed
documentation. The sources and assumptions that they have made
were very weak or lacking. They were not comprehensive in the
sense that all costs weren't included. And one of the things I
would just like to bring up right now, you know, we have heard
talk, Dr. Groves had mentioned about they are revisiting the
mail response rate. Well, that has a huge impact for the final
cost of the census. A 1-percentage point change in response
rate, by the way, can have tens of millions of dollars worth of
implication for the final cost of the census. So that would be
something, right off the bat, that, you know, it is great that
the Bureau is looking at that, but the question I would have is
to what extent is that being reflected in their cost estimates.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Mr. Chaffetz, 5 minutes.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, thank you all. I know you all believe that the
integrity in the process is paramount to successful completion
and confidence by the American people.
Director Groves, I would like you to get as specific as you
can about the policy and procedures--hopefully they are
written--as to the criteria what would exclude somebody from
joining on and joining the census. We hear reports about
criminals being hired to conduct the census. That is concerning
to a lot of people, including myself. But what point, at what
threshold do you say this person is not qualified, and to what
degree are people qualified even though they might have a
criminal background?
Dr. Groves. I can supply that information. As you might
guess, Congressman, publishing that information would provide a
set of people information that would allow them to gain that
system in a way that might be harmful to the safety of the U.S.
public. I can tell you how we go about this.
We receive from the FBI, on those names or fingerprints
that generate a criminal history, the nature of the offenses.
As you know, the FBI database doesn't completely give the
disposition of all those offenses. So we review this, we give a
chance to the applicant to provide counter information, and
there are a set of crimes that are basically more serious than
others where the applicant would fall out.
I can tell you in the fingerprinting side that about 58
percent, I believe, of those that had a criminal history come
back from the FBI based on fingerprints were eliminated from
the group; 42 percent stayed in because these were crimes that
were judged not to threaten the safety of the U.S. public.
Mr. Chaffetz. I mean, at least according to what I'm
reading on page 13 of the GAO report, midway through the first
complete paragraph, of the 1,800 workers with criminal records,
approximately 750, or 42 percent, were terminated. So it would
be the other way around; 58 percent were actually allowed to
stay. The number 58 would be consistent. Why? How do we allow
somebody with a criminal record to participate in the
enumeration process of the U.S. census? I can't think of any
threshold that I would have any confidence in allowing somebody
to go knock on Grandma's door and invite themselves in to
further discuss very pertinent personal information. I don't
understand what threshold of criminal activity is acceptable by
the census.
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to go through this process if
you would like.
Mr. Chaffetz. Yes. That is why I am asking the question.
Dr. Groves. The list of crimes that I talked about before
are things that--the process by which we make these judgments
is totally driven by our concerns about the safety of the U.S.
public.
Mr. Chaffetz. So why not exclude all of them?
Dr. Groves. Because in the judgment of the process going
on, these don't harm the safety of the American public. They
can.
Mr. Chaffetz. And that is a subjective point of view that
you are just personally making on some--I mean, who is making
these decisions?
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to review this with you
whenever you want, Congressman.
Mr. Chaffetz. Right now would be ideal.
Dr. Groves. I don't have the list of the offenses in front
of me, but I could----
Mr. Chaffetz. I am concerned that it is a subjective
criteria; it is not an objective criteria. I think if you are
going in and you are asking for personal, sensitive information
about their names, their addresses, about what my 8-year-old
daughter's birthday is, I can't find anybody with a criminal
record that I would be comfortable giving that information to.
Meanwhile, we have literally millions and millions and millions
of good, hard-working, honest Americans without criminal
backgrounds that are just dying to get an appointment. I can
find no excuse for allowing somebody to deal with that
sensitive information in the American people's homes.
Based on the information I am seeing, Mr. Chairman, we have
over 1,000 of them, at least, and that number is probably much,
much greater than that. I have a deep, deep concern. GAO points
out that crimes such as rape, manslaughter, child abuse are
being dismissed. I appreciate that, but there are a whole lot
of other crimes that I wouldn't express confidence in, either.
Mr. Chairman, I see that my time has expired. For the
record, I would like to exercise my right to have 5 minutes for
each member of the panel, but I want to be sensitive.
Mr. Clay. We will have another round of questions.
Mr. Chaffetz. Fair enough. I yield back my time. Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Mr. Chaffetz. My expired time.
Mr. Clay. Ms. Watson, you are recognized.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really want to thank
you for having this hearing today. I can't think of a more
significant and crucial hearing when it relates to the Census
Bureau's ongoing compilation of the master address file. And,
based on the time-tested theory that the quality of output can
only be as good as the quality of input, the MAF is key to what
we can expect to learn about the United States and the changes
its population has gone in the last decade.
I think everyone knows I come from the largest State in the
Union, California, and 38 million people, and we get 2,000
immigrating into our State on a daily basis, and they
surprisingly don't all come from over the border, they come
from across the Pacific, and so we are the first State in the
Union that is a majority of minorities, and that brings a whole
lot of different qualities to the count.
I am sorry I missed the first part of the panel, because I
know you have given us very vital information, and so I would
like to know what challenges must be met to ensure a one-to-one
match between the residents of the Nation and the Census
Bureau's address book, and who we know is likely to be left out
or under-counted, misunderstood, or intimidated into
concealment if the Federal Government's message, methods, or
motives lack transparency.
Now, once every 10 years I bring someone from the census
into my office, and I say, ``Let me tell you, if you are going
to get an accurate count in my District you are going to go
upstairs over the liquor store, you are going to come out on
Sunday without your clip board and you are going to go to the
playground at the school or at the church or at the park,
because that is where you are going to find a lot of people
coming out of those cramped apartments with their children.''
So much depends on getting a picture of who we are in
America and how we go about counting them. And so, if I can,
Dr. Groves--and if you have already addressed this, then I will
take the record as my information--but an amendment has been
proposed in the Senate's appropriation bill for fiscal year
2010 that would require the 2010 census to ask about
citizenship, and how do you believe this would affect the
Bureau's ability to perform a full and accurate count?
Dr. Groves. Thank you for that question. As you may know,
we have printed over 400 million forms already. I visited one
of our facilities that had seven stacks of pallets in 400,000
square feet filled with printed forms already stuffed, ready to
be delivered. The most serious problem of changing the census
now----
Mr. McHenry. Dr. Groves, I think staff has a photograph of
the very scene you are saying. I don't intend to take your
time, and I ask, Mr. Chairman, if you would make her time
whole, but there is a picture that you are referencing of those
printed forms. I thought it would be a useful visual for those
here today.
Dr. Groves. It is an impressive picture, I believe.
Mr. Clay. Go ahead. You may proceed, Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Dr. Groves was responding.
Mr. Clay. OK.
Dr. Groves. So the Census Bureau, before I got there,
followed the regulations on how we should behave, and in 2007
the topics of the questionnaire were submitted to the Hill for
comment, for addition. That was a moment to add a topic. And
then in the middle of 2008 we delivered to the Hill, according
to regulations, the exact questions to be asked, and at that
time there were no added questions asked.
I can say with absolute confidence that if we add a
question to this census questionnaire at this point we will not
deliver the reapportionment counts on December 31, 2010. We
will not provide the data for redistricting. We don't have
enough time to make these changes.
Ms. Watson. So what you are saying is that you have not
considered immigration on this form?
Dr. Groves. I am saying that the addition of a question
about----
Ms. Watson. You have not--I just want to know, is there any
indication, any question relative to immigration on the form?
Yes, no?
Dr. Groves. Not at all. Not at all.
Ms. Watson. OK. All right. Now, I am also concerned about
home foreclosure and the number of people who have been forced
out of their homes and on the streets, and the rising jobless
rates means more Americans are leaving their homes and living
in a constant shifting and non-traditional arrangements such as
in their cars, in tent cities, and on the couches of various
friends and family members, and all the while increased
financial hardships may make some Americans less willing to
cooperate with the census workers. What challenges has the
economic and housing foreclosure crisis posed to the collection
of a complete master address file?
Dr. Groves. There are two things I am worried about. I am
worried less about the master address file than the actual
enumeration. The foreclosed homes--I was in L.A. 2 days ago--
are largely empty now. Some are not habitable now. We are going
to spend money on those houses by knocking on the door after we
mail a questionnaire to those houses, so there is a cost
implication of foreclosures.
I am also worried about the doubling up problem of homes
that are the result of that foreclosure. There, we are
redoubling our efforts to make sure people get the message if
you have some family members living with you in that state, to
include them where they live with you, even though you may not
think of them as part of your home permanently. Because they
don't have another residence, they need to be counted where
they are.
And then the other thing you mentioned is----
Ms. Watson. What about those living in their cars?
Dr. Groves. Yes. In L.A. I rode street after street where
there are RVs parked one after the other and they stay there
for 3 days and then they move to another neighborhood because
of the parking regulations. There are people living in these
RVs. These are people who were well off enough to have an RV 2
years ago, but that is all they have now.
This is a challenge for us in what Ms. Jacobs talked about,
this 3-day period where we measure these non-traditional living
situations. It is a new challenge for us. Our local regional
folks are all over this problem, but it is going to be a
challenge.
Ms. Watson. I will agree with you. I represent Los Angeles,
Culver City, Hollywood. I see them on the streets every day. An
under-count has been constant in various areas. Every decade
there is an under-count. Therefore, the representation is off a
little bit, the resources that would flow in that would follow
the numbers in various categories we lose. So it is really
important.
I think that even numerators who have been incarcerated can
be rehabilitated and can be very helpful in some areas of the
community where they recognize these people and they feel more
comfortable giving up the information about how many live in a
particular house and so on. I mean, I have apartments in my
District where they hot bed. There might be a dozen people in a
one-bedroom apartment. Somebody whose face might be familiar,
somebody who has the charisma and so on, non-threatening type
could probably give us a more accurate number. So I am all for
your figuring out ways to count these people.
I think my time might be up, but anyway let me go on to Mr.
Zinser. If it is up, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Clay. It is up, and we will have a second round of
questions.
Ms. Watson. All right. I will yield back and I will wait.
Mr. Clay. I thank the gentlewoman.
Mr. McHenry, you are recognized for your second round of
questions.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldenkoff, I want to start with you. I actually
reviewed your Senate report and testimony, and you have added
quite a bit to your testimony today, but the one essential part
that is largely the same, I believe, is dealing with the cost;
is that true?
Mr. Goldenkoff. That is correct.
Mr. McHenry. So forgive me if I am referencing the Senate
section here, but you report, for example, the Bureau had
planned for 25 percent of new hires to quit before, during, or
soon after training; however, the national average was 16
percent.
Mr. Goldenkoff. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. Bureau officials said that not having to
replace listers with inexperienced staff accelerated the pace
of operation. The way you write that, it is basically a report
from the Bureau. Did you find that was true, based on your
analysis?
Mr. Goldenkoff. Well, we did not independently confirm the
numbers, but based on our knowledge of the census and census
operations we could see how that could be both a cost savings
and also make the operation more efficient. Basically, among
other things, it saves you training, for example. The people
work all the way through. They are also more experienced, they
know their jobs better, there is not that learning curve, so it
would certainly make sense that would improve the pace of the
operation.
Mr. McHenry. OK. So it is kind of interesting that perhaps
that lesson, alone, to know that because of perhaps the
economic situation that we are in that people are sticking
through the job, right?
Mr. Goldenkoff. That is correct.
Mr. McHenry. And the applicants are stronger to begin with.
Mr. Goldenkoff. That is correct.
Mr. McHenry. All right. So therefore we see perhaps a
better result from our non-response followup coming up, based
on that experience?
Mr. Goldenkoff. It is possible. That is correct. You can
make the argument that there is a better work force going into
non-response followup in the sense that they have employment
history, they have a work ethic. In the past the Census Bureau
has relied on for the 2000 census a part-time part-time
strategy, basically part-time employees, under-employed people.
But to the extent that you have a very skilled work force now
that is looking for work, those people tend to be better
employees and more responsible.
Mr. McHenry. Additionally, what was the key cost overrun?
What was the largest failure of the Bureau with this cost
overrun?
Mr. Goldenkoff. There was actually several reasons for it.
Mr. McHenry. I know in your report----
Mr. Goldenkoff. A big reason was they under-estimated the
workload, the address canvassing workload. There were I think
around 11 million additional addresses that they hadn't counted
on. Some of those came from LUCA. Some of those came from other
sources. Each one of those addresses had to be verified in the
field, and that is labor intensive and costly.
Mr. McHenry. Sure. And you mentioned 11 million, which it
says in your report that 11 million addresses were included
that were not in their original 2009 budget; is that true?
Mr. Goldenkoff. That is correct.
Mr. McHenry. And that was one of the largest dollar amount
increases?
Mr. Goldenkoff. I believe so. That, and the fact that they
hired more listers than they needed to because they didn't
stick to their staffing model.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Dr. Groves, in light of this, what are you
doing to make sure that you don't have a massive cost overrun
for all the processes that we have going forward?
Dr. Groves. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. I mean, a 25 percent cost overrun is
extraordinary.
Dr. Groves. I think you could classify the things we are
doing under two categories. I view this as a combination of
top-down cost modeling where you take the 2000 estimates, you
update them by what has changed, and then you derive a new cost
estimate, versus a bottom-up approach where you get the
components of the activities, you cost each one, and you
aggregate it up.
The typical Bureau approach is to do a top-down cost model.
Those have been updated based on address canvassing results,
the new hiring and attrition rates, and we have changed the
staffing model going forward, so it took advantage of the
information properly done. That is a good thing to do, but I
don't think it is sufficient, and so we are also building a
model from the bottom up, getting activity level cost and then
aggregating it up, and I want to compare those two aggregate
cost estimates.
Mr. McHenry. My time has expired, but in closing, you know,
you were here when address canvassing had ended. That was about
the approximate time you testified, and you didn't want to
discuss the cost of this in that hearing. With the 25 percent
cost overrun, it seems to me unfathomable that you did not know
that there would be significant cost overruns. What I have said
in every meeting with you personally, in public, and what the
chairman has said as well, and I think just about every member
of this committee, is that we want to be of assistance here.
If you keep us in the dark about challenges or problems,
you know, including $88 million that was not budgeted for, it
seems to me that you were not keeping us apprised of this, and
that is rather disappointing, and I would hope that whoever is
counseling you to hold back on that information, that you don't
listen to that counsel; that you come forward and let us know
as soon as problems occur, because we do want to be of
assistance. We want to make sure that everything is there for
you so you can have the best, most accurate counts. I know that
is what the Bureau wants. I know that is what you personally
want. But you need to keep us informed on this.
I can understand if you didn't know a 3 percent cost
overrun, but 25 percent, for heaven's sake, that seems to me
unfathomable that you didn't know that. And so I would
encourage you to come forward as soon as you know there are any
problems or challenges, and we do want to be of assistance.
Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.
Ms. Jacobs, you mentioned in your testimony that many
housing units of migrant and seasonal farm workers are not in
the master address file because they are actively concealed.
What do you mean by actively concealed?
Ms. Jacobs. Well, I think there are several reasons for
active concealment. What I mean about that is that, ranging
from the owners and operators of that housing not wanting it to
be seen and therefore disguising it or hiding it as best they
can, to the occupants of that housing not wanting to be
discovered because they are living in what would be considered
illegal units or living where they think they are not supposed
to. For example, they are hidden under tarps and lean-tos in
the canyons in San Diego County, or in L.A. County in onion
fields. They are living in between trees, under tarps. These
are circumstances where they are trying not to be seen because
they will be dislocated from the housing. They might be
evicted. They might be threatened if they remain there.
When the owners of the property or the owners of the
illegal housing units believe that they will be either
prosecuted or sued, for example, by CRLA for maintaining
uninhabitable dwellings for their workers, they will try to
actively conceal those units, so that can be difficult for the
Census Bureau. But I don't think active concealment is the
biggest problem that we have.
Mr. Clay. Well, how can the Census Bureau get a better
count of these populations?
Ms. Jacobs. Well, I think the example that we gave in our
written testimony, which was also cited in 2003 by the GAO
report on the address listing protocol that we used, is the
best example. We have trusted faces in the community. We have
reliable community outreach workers that work for local
community-based organizations who know where this housing is
located who can work in partnership with the Census Bureau to
assist both in address listing and in enumeration of these
locations. They know where they are. They are trusted by the
occupants. They can go a long way to opening doors, so to
speak, for the Census Bureau.
Mr. Clay. You know, the deplorable conditions for housing
for immigrant workers are not confined to migrant farm workers.
Recent immigrants to this country have the same living
conditions in cities, just as Ms. Watson pointed out. What are
some examples of low-visibility units in cities that do not
have postal addresses, and how are they reached by Census
workers?
Ms. Jacobs. I think that the problems in isolated rural
areas and the types of housing in which migrant and seasonal
farm workers live are very similar to the small towns in
agricultural communities, as well as many of the inner city
areas where there are illegal units that are being rented out,
there are illegal garages that are being rented out. Underneath
someone's porch is being rented out as a ``habitable''
dwelling. Again, there is local knowledge of where these units
are and, more importantly, I think that the Census Bureau's own
hard-to-count database can be improved, enhanced, and utilized
to target special enumeration procedures in areas that have a
high concentration of hidden housing units. I think that can be
used in rural areas, as well as in inner city urban areas, and
it should be done regardless of whether those areas are
considered mail-out/mail-back areas. They still need to be
targeted for enumeration that is not done by mail, or we will
miss not only entire housing units but we will continue to have
people omitted from households.
Mr. Clay. You know, speaking of omissions, in 1990 it was
estimated that 48 to 52 percent of the migrant seasonal farm
workers were under-counted. A large part of the under-count was
attributed to total household omissions. What is the extent of
these problems heading into the 2010 decennial? What do you see
them as?
Ms. Jacobs. I believe that 2010 will have very similar
problems. I give the Census Bureau credit for developing
improved job aids and improved instructions and training to
their address listers and enumerators, but I think that a lot
more needs to be done in order to ensure that the locations are
identified for the Census Bureau so that addresses can be added
to the address file at any time through non-response followup,
as well as during the decade, and so that again these areas can
be targeted for special enumeration procedures.
Mr. Clay. What suggestion do you have for collaboration
between the Bureau and groups like yours to get these addresses
in the file?
Ms. Jacobs. Well, we certainly take advantage of the
partnership opportunities that the Census Bureau offers and we
encourage and we train other community-based organizations to
do the same. I think, however, that the Census Bureau could
make better and more use of local knowledge and community-based
organizations in its LUCA process, as well as in address
canvassing and by using the special protocol that we described
in our written testimony.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much for your response.
The gentleman from Utah is recognized.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldenkoff, I would like to go back to the questioning
we were doing with Director Groves, talking specifically about
the criminal element that seems to be acceptable to Census
Bureau. Can you give me your perspective on that situation? Are
there criteria? Are they objective? Subjective? How many people
are we talking about here?
Mr. Goldenkoff. I don't know. We have not seen the actual
list. I mean, obviously some crimes are less severe than
others, but which ones would allow you census jobs and which
ones will not, we don't know because we haven't seen the list.
Mr. Chaffetz. Is there any written criteria for this, or is
this just something that is just done on the fly and very
subjective?
Mr. Goldenkoff. We have not looked into that, so I do not
know.
Ms. Zinser. Sir, can I address that?
Mr. Chaffetz. Yes. Yes, please.
Ms. Zinser. I became the IG at Commerce in late December
2007/January 2008. By Federal of 2008 we were alerting the
Department and the Census Bureau that they had to get on this
fingerprint issue.
Mr. Chaffetz. Yes.
Ms. Zinser. And they weren't prepared for it, and it took
them 6 to 8 months to get ready for fingerprinting, and the
original estimates for fingerprinting were up in the $600
million and $700 million. Our office worked with them for 6 or
7 months, working on their cost estimate.
There is criteria, and there is criteria in other Federal
jobs, also. My most recent experience before Commerce was at
transportation and transportation security. There are common
lists of offenses that the Federal Government refers to in
terms of whether somebody is qualified or disqualified. One of
the things we recommended for the Census Bureau was, in the
past they would let local or regional offices make
determinations on which crimes are disqualifying and which
crimes aren't. We recommended that they centralize that in an
office called CHECK. I can't tell you what that exactly stands
for, but there is an office in Census headquarters that has
centralized these kind of determinations, and we think that is
a good practice.
Mr. Chaffetz. Is there written criteria?
Ms. Zinser. Yes, there is. I think that doesn't eliminate
all subjectivity. I think you do have to make some judgments.
For example, how long ago the offense occurred? Is it a
misdemeanor? Is it a felony? Is it a violent crime, non-violent
crime?
And I also know that the Census Bureau has been consulting
with the FBI on those types of issues.
Mr. Chaffetz. My concern is that we just are somewhat in
the dark on this. Again, it is giving the confidence of the
integrity of the process and the people that are going to be
knocking on their door, because, unlike most other Federal
jobs, they are actually going to be going up and approaching
somebody in their home and asking for sensitive information
that can lead to other nefarious types of activities, and thus
the concern.
There are certainly a number of other types of Government
jobs that somebody with a criminal background can participate
in, whether it is the Department of Transportation or Member of
Congress, whatever it might be, right? But in terms of the
census, I think there is a great deal of sensitivity.
Going back to Director Groves, how many people are we
talking about, because, at least the way I read and interpret
the numbers from the GAO report, we are talking over a thousand
people. It is not a small, ``Hey, we have a handful here or
there.'' I recognize the totality of the effort that is going
on, but this seems like a rather large--and I sense a degree of
secrecy that you want to keep from this committee in allowing
us to understand so they can't ``game the system'' that I just
find wholly unacceptable. I think there is a great deal of fear
that will be created probably on the other end of it by being
so secretive about what is acceptable and what is not
acceptable.
Dr. Groves. I can say, Congressman, that everything we do
is in compliance with OPM guidelines that are, indeed,
published. I don't have those with me, but I can supply those.
So we are following that as well as we can.
I think the other thing to note, just to make sure that I
am communicating the facts correctly, is that the existence of
a record in the FBI doesn't imply conviction of a crime.
Mr. Chaffetz. So if somebody has been charged with a crime
but not convicted, are they allowed to be an enumerator?
Dr. Groves. What happens then is that the applicant is
required by us to provide court certified documentation on the
outcome of the case.
Mr. Chaffetz. If they have----
Dr. Groves. That is following the OPM guidelines.
Mr. Chaffetz. And we are talking about tens of thousands of
people here who have not completed the background process; that
is, they have not had their fingerprinting processed by the
FBI. Are those people allowed to start work, even though they
haven't completed that process? Because it looks like, based on
what has been going on in surveying and going out to all the
neighborhoods and trying to figure out the maps and all that,
that those people have actually been employed and working,
despite what ultimately concluded was unacceptable, nefarious
behavior.
Dr. Groves. This group has universally passed the FBI name
check that is based on name, date of birth, Social Security,
and found----
Mr. Chaffetz. Do you use e-verify?
Dr. Groves. We do use e-verify as part of the employment
process. In addition to that, then we do the FBI name check. So
everyone has passed that.
Mr. Chaffetz. So all of those names have gone through the
e-verify process?
Dr. Groves. All of those names, to my knowledge, have gone
through the e-verify process.
Mr. Clay. The gentleman from Utah's time has expired.
Mr. Chaffetz. Understood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Clay. The gentleman from North Carolina?
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly.
Dr. Groves, does the Bureau have a set of internal
procedures and policies on what is a disqualifier in terms of
criminal records?
Dr. Groves. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Mr. Goldenkoff, has that been verified by
GAO?
Mr. Goldenkoff. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. Yes.
Mr. Goldenkoff. They do.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Mr. Zinser.
Ms. Zinser. Yes, sir, I have seen them.
Mr. McHenry. All right. Mr. Groves, are you confident that
there are no violent criminals that work for the Census Bureau?
Dr. Groves. I am confident that the people employed by the
Census Bureau have gone through this process and have been
judged as not having a criminal history under the process.
Mr. McHenry. Sure. And would the three of you agree to
followup with Mr. Chaffetz and his staff in regards to his line
of questioning?
Dr. Groves. I would be happy to.
Mr. Goldenkoff. Yes, sir.
Ms. Zinser. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. OK. Thank you all for that, and thank you for
your testimony today.
Mr. Chaffetz. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. McHenry. Sure.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you. I won't keep everybody all day, I
promise.
Mr. Clay. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. McHenry. I asked the chairman for 1 minute, so I think
you have a----
Mr. Chaffetz. OK. Thank you.
What percentage of the people going through the process go
through the fingerprinting process? It is 100 percent; is that
correct?
Dr. Groves. We don't hire anyone who doesn't pass the name
check. All the people who pass the name check then are
submitted to the fingerprinting--who we wish to hire, are
submitted.
Mr. Chaffetz. And how long does it take? You know, they
fill out their application, and then--I mean, the FBI, are they
taking----
Dr. Groves. This is done on the first day of training.
There are two cards made.
Mr. Chaffetz. Right.
Dr. Groves. By two different fingerprinters. Those cards
are FedExed to our national processing center and then
electronically transmitted to the FBI. The turn-around time on
the FBI in the last operation was about 22 hours. That process
seems to be working. We beefed up the electronic pipeline to
that, and we are doing a big load test of that. We are going to
simulate a million hires through the FBI's submission process,
just to make sure we can do that volume when we have to.
Mr. Chaffetz. What is the biggest concern that you have at
this moment? All things considered, what is your biggest
concern?
Dr. Groves. About what? About the entire 2010 census?
Mr. Chaffetz. The entire totality of the process. When you
wake up in the morning and say, ``Oh, my goodness, this is my
biggest concern,'' what would it be?
Dr. Groves. I'm most worried about the behavior of the
American public, whether they will return this questionnaire at
the rates we hope they will, and that the leadership of this
country ignites and energizes themselves to encourage that
participation. We need you at this moment.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your indulgence.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chaffetz.
The Director couldn't summarize it better. I want to thank
the panel for your testimony today.
That concludes the hearing. Hearing adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:17 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]