[CTPP] census 2000 bulletin #2

********** C E N S U S 2 0 0 0 B U L L E T I N ********** Vol. 2 - No. 43 Sept. 11, 1998 In today's second report on his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on the Census Wednesday (Sept. 9), Acting Census Bureau Director James F. Holmes' focuses on "critical activities" that must occur in Fiscal Year 1999 if Census 2000 is to be a success. Holmes said in part: "Mr. Chairman, before continuing with answers to the specific questions in your letter of invitation, I want to emphasize that many critical activities vital to the success of Census 2000 must be conducted on schedule in FY1999. These activities, as I said earlier, apply both to a census with sampling or without. A key activity is the continuing development of an accurate Master Address File. In FY1999, we will begin and complete work to verify the estimated 94 million addresses that use house number and street name, commonly referred to as 'city-style addresses.' Also, we will complete the locating and listing of an estimated 22 million non-city style addresses that do not use house number and street name, known as 'rural address listing.' We will also extend our efforts to validate the address list with state, local, and tribal authorities, a program made possible by the Census Address List Improvement Act of 1994 that authorized these governments to review and validate the list. "Other key Census 2000 activities in FY1999 include beginning the process of opening local census offices in every congressional district; purchasing and putting in place the automation and telecommunication infrastructure to support the nationwide network of facilities; completing software development and testing; finalizing preparations for data capture; and printing questionnaires, notification letters, and other Census 2000 forms. Another critical activity to be completed in FY1999 is an evaluation of this year's full-scale Dress Rehearsal. We also will finalize plans for enumerating people without a traditional home and for making available telephone assistance to answer respondents' questions about the census process and questionnaire. And our expanded partnership program will continue to work with state, local, and tribal governments, as well as community-based organizations, local media, and other public and private sector organizations to promote public awareness of this nationwide mandate. "These are all activities that will be necessary for a successful census under either design and if any of them are seriously delayed, the census will be put at risk. "Moreover, our address listing operations will be put in a state of failure by any delay in the FY1999 funding stream in early October. We would have to release 1,800 supervisors and crew leaders already trained and on the payroll. We would have to tell 22,000 staff who list addresses not to come to the planned training, as well as cancel all space accommodations for the training. We would lose a significant portion of the staff we released as well as the listers we told not to come to training. This would mean starting the entire recruiting process over again and would result in a delay of at least one month in the second wave of listing. We would not be able to recover from this and would not be able to complete the second wave on time. "Any delay of this magnitude will seriously impact subsequent operations including the third wave of listing in rural areas and block canvassing in areas with city-style addresses. Each stage of the field work for all operations must be completed on a timely basis so that we can meet the absolutely critical July 1999 deadline for delivering to contractors an address file for labeling the census questionnaires. Field activities must be completed on time if we are to meet this critical deadline necessary to ensure the timely mailing of census questionnaires." For further information about this bulletin, contact J. Paul Wyatt of the Public Information Office on 301-457-3052 (fax: 301-457-3670; e-mail: pio(a)census.gov).