[CTPP] Census 2000 News Alert

From: Census2000 &lt;Census2000(a)ccmc.org&gt; Senate Funders Not Ready to Allocate Extra Money for Census The Senate Appropriations Committee has declined to grant the Administration's request for an additional $1.723 billion to implement its revised Census 2000 plan. At a committee meeting yesterday, the panel allocated only $2.789 billion for census operations in fiscal year 2000 (FY2000), which begins on October 1, instead of the $4.512 billion the Administration now says it needs to conduct the decennial count. In a report explaining the funding measure, the committee said the 2000 census is still "at risk of failure." Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, and the Judiciary, said he would schedule hearings to review the request for more census funds. The counterpart House subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), has not announced its plans for considering the FY2000 funding bill. In his government-wide budget submitted to Congress last February, the President requested $2.789 billion for the census in FY2000. The original request was developed before a January Supreme Court ruling forced the Census Bureau to drop one proposed use of statistical sampling, in order to compile state population totals for congressional apportionment without sampling methods. The President sent a revised Census 2000 budget to Congress earlier this week, asking for $4.512 billion to conduct the census next year. The Census Bureau said much of the extra money is needed to pay for the added cost of visiting all households that do not mail back a census form. The Bureau estimates it will need 860,000 temporary workers during peak census operations. The follow-up operation is expected to take about 10 weeks, four more than originally planned. In its report, the Senate Appropriations Committee also "directed" the Census Bureau to count all American citizens living overseas in the 2000 census. However, House Census Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL) said at a June 9 hearing of his panel that the Census Bureau should find a way to include overseas Americans in the census starting in 2010. In addition to reviewing a proposal to count Americans living abroad, the House subcommittee discussed proposals to change the way military personnel stationed in the U.S. and certain prisoners are counted. The Census 2000 Initiative will provide a more complete summary of the June 9 hearing next week. Special News Alert update: We have updated the Special News Alert on census jobs distributed on June 8, to reflect recent changes to the Census Bureau's operational plan. The updated version is posted on the home page of our Web site at <http://www.census2000.org>. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or, by e-mail at terriann2k(a)aol.com. For copies of previous News Alerts and other information, visit ourWeb site www.census2000.org <http://www.census2000.org>. Please direct all requests to receive News Alerts and all changes in address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the Census 2000 Initiative at Census2000(a)ccmc.org or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.