Today's NY Times: Census Damage Control
So, not only can we not track food that is poisoning folks, it looks like one of the central government mandates has been "broken".
HEADLINE: Preparations for the 2010 census are a shambles.
In the election pandemonium, another agency is found "lacking"
Committees in the House have been holding hearings to vet the problems and monitor progress. But with each hearing, it becomes more obvious that prospects for a robust census are unlikely to improve considerably unless and until the next president brings in new leaders. They are needed at the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau, and at the bureau itself, which — like so many federal agencies — has been mismanaged and demoralized during the Bush years.
Looking at the official 2010 Census part of the website it looks like Director Louis Kincannon has been sounding an alert....
October 16, 2007 – U.S. Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon testified before Congress on how the Census Bureau's funding levels under a continuing resolution through Nov. 16 is threatening critical preparations for the 2010 Census. Speaking for more than an hour before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee, Kincannon discussed the impact of the continuing resolution budget that funds most government activities at previous fiscal year levels. The Census Bureau is uniquely affected because its budget almost doubles this year as it ramps up for its 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal and other key 2010 Census operations and programs.
He discussed:
* The impact of operating under a continuing resolution at funding levels which are about half of what is needed to continue preparations for the 2010 Census.
* The importance of testing new hand-held computers and data capture operations, a top priority for the reengineered census. The new system will enhance efficiency and accuracy, reduce paper and save money, but the Census Bureau cannot use the new devices without conducting a full systems test.
* Due to the delay in funding, there will be a reduced-scope Dress Rehearsal. Smaller important operations which have been successful in pervious censuses, such as group quarter’s enumeration, will also not be tested prior to the 2010 Census.
* If funding is delayed beyond Nov. 16, it will call into question the ability to test the hand-held systems at all.
OH WAIT !! Looks like Kincannon dodged the accountability bullet by retiring last January, (according to his Wiki).
Charles Louis Kincannon (born December 1940 in Waco, Texas) is a former director of the United States Census Bureau. Kincannon took office on March 13, 2002 after being nominated by George W. Bush and confirmed unanimously by the Senate, and served until he retired on January 3, 2008.
UPDATE: Found this tidbit, apparently chaos is the reason Kincannon quit...
Texan Is Picked to Run Census
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Bush has nominated the demographer of Texas, Steven Murdock, to be director of the census, the White House said. Mr. Murdock would replace Louis Kincannon, who said last year that he felt he had lost the confidence of the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, and would resign when a new director was confirmed. Mr. Murdock is a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
And what did he leave? Well some genius decided the census should add a "fun factor"....
Congress, in the meantime, has damage control to do. For starters, lawmakers should pass a census funding bill for 2009, pending now in the House, that includes a ban on the use of the bureau’s budget to offer prizes to people for sending in their census forms. It’s morally dubious — and bad public policy — to bribe people to do their civic duty.
Also, research has shown that people who do not fill out their census forms would be unlikely to fill out prize forms, too. Including a sweepstakes with the census would invite errors, such as multiple submissions. But all those well-documented negatives have not stopped the Commerce Department from supporting the idea.
I wonder what happened to all those hand held devices purchased for the 2000 count? Never mind, because positive findings from 2000 have probably been scrapped anyway.
Lawmakers must also ensure that the final census funding bill includes a provision from the House version that would require the bureau to spend $8 million to $10 million of its budget on the Census in Schools program. The program, which provides take-home materials to educate families about the census, proved effective in reaching hard-to-count populations during the 2000 census. But the House committee that oversees the bureau learned last spring that the Commerce Department planned to shrink the program.
I don't even see how they are going to fingerprint folks who have historically been hired on a temporary basis in the past.
The Census Bureau also announced earlier this month that it intends to fingerprint its temporary work force of 500,000 census takers, a logistical feat that will require hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours. The wisdom of fingerprinting is debatable. In the past, the bureau has screened workers via F.B.I. name checks, but obtained a waiver from the law that requires the fingerprinting of federal employees. That was adequate to keep the public safe: in 2000, four census employees were accused of crimes, but in all four cases the charges were dropped or the accused acquitted.
Demands for public safety are perhaps louder now and that may argue for better background checks. But what is not debatable is that a decision to fingerprint should have been made years ago, and budgeted for accordingly, in term of money and time. By leaving it until now, it places a huge burden on an already strained process and seems intended to strain it even further.
And so, if there is an undercount, Guess What? It will skew 2010 redistricting. No biggie.
The quality of the nation’s democracy depends on the census, because the numbers are used to decide the number of Congressional seats from each state and hence the number of votes each state has in the Electoral College. It’s hard to ignore the impression of partisan motives in policies that hobble the census, because an inaccurate census invariably undercounts out-of-the-mainstream groups not typically aligned with Republicans.
UPDATE II- LAST YEARS MAN made the comment that REALLY warns us of the implications...hopefully more elaboration will arise !!!
* [new] Oh christ. This is NOT incompetence guys (2+ / 0-)
the redistricting portion of this diary was a wake up call. Why? Because the Republican Party did the same thing in Texas a few years ago. The redistricting was so ridiculous that Democrats actually refused to come to the capitol for a whole month.
John Mccain: No benefits for our troops
by Last Years Man on Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 05:35:59 AM PDT
UPDATE III (because Diaries are living things sometimes)
kittania provides another clue about the American Community Survey as "motive".
lecsmith keeps an eye on Don Evans and Bill Adler as culprits.
FINAL EXCLAMATION POINT UPDATE:
courtesy of alizard !!
#
from my previous diary (1+ / 0-)
$2B overrun on $600M contract?
Billion-dollar IT failure at Census Bureau
Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 7:51 pm
The US Census Bureau faces cost overruns up to $2 billion on an IT initiative replacing paper-based data collection methods with specialized handheld devices for the upcoming 2010 census. The Bureau has not implemented longstanding Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations and may therefore be forced to scrap the program. Harris Corp., the contractor associated with this incompetently managed initiative, was awarded a $600 million contract to develop the handhelds and related software.
. . .
Computer World blogger, Frank Hayes, summarized the situation succinctly, "The fancy custom handhelds might work. But if they don't, the Census Bureau will use paper instead."
by alizard on Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 01:29:58 PM PDT