STAKEHOLDERS URGE LAWMAKERS TO SUPPORT CENSUS BUDGET PLUS: Brookings Sponsors Census Forum on Hill; Census Bureau Rejects Change in Prisoner Count; and more. A diverse group of organizations sent a letter last month to members of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees that fund the Census Bureau, expressing support for the Presidents proposed Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07) budget for the 2010 census and American Community Survey. Organized by The Census Project, stakeholders told lawmakers that the Presidents request of $878 million for the bureau represents the minimum needed to ensure effective preparations for the decennial count and comprehensive data collection in the American Community Survey. The letter highlighted the shift from planning to preparation activities for the 2010 census, including finalizing questionnaire content; preparing for the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal in San Joaquin County, California, and the Fayetteville, North Carolina, region; developing the technological framework for data processing and field data collection; and completing modernization of the digital mapping system (TIGER). The American Community Survey (ACS), stakeholders wrote, is one of the most prudent investments the government can make in sound planning and program development and evaluation. Insufficient funding, they cautioned, could force the Census Bureau to drop group quarters coverage or reduce sample size, placing a complete transition from the census long form in jeopardy. The letter also mentioned the need to fund final preparations for the 2007 Economic Census and Census of Governments, and noted concerns about the Administrations proposal to terminate the Survey of Income and Program Participation before development of an alternative program. Seventeen stakeholder organizations, representing local governments, scientific disciplines, civil rights and ethnic community advocates, and housing interests, signed the letter. A copy of the March 28 letter is posted on the The Census Project web site at www.thecensusproject.org. For more detailed information on the Presidents FY07 budget request for the Census Bureau, see the February 6 Census News Brief, also posted on the web site. Commerce Secretary defends Census Bureau budget before House funders: Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce on April 5, in support of the departments $6.1 billion budget request for FY07. The proposed budget, Gutierrez said in his written testimony, reflects both the Administrations commitment to promote and sustain economic growth and opportunity, and the need to restrain discretionary Federal spending. The Secretary said each of the departments agencies supports one of three strategic goals. The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), both part of the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), advance the goal of provid[ing] the information and tools to maximize U.S. competitiveness and enable economic growth for American industries, workers, and consumers. The Administration requested $80.5 million for ESA headquarters and BEA, which publishes key data on the nations economy, including the Gross Domestic Product. The Census Bureau, Gutierrez told appropriators, serves as the leading source of quality data about the Nations people and economy. The Secretary noted that the 2010 census comprises the largest component of the bureaus $878 million proposed budget, a trend that will continue through 2010 because of extensive planning, testing, and development activities related to the short form. The Secretary is tentatively scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science early next month. Brookings highlights importance of census to Congress: The Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based think tank, hosted the first in a series of briefings on Capitol Hill to educate congressional staff and other stakeholders about the importance of an accurate census. The briefing, called The Road to the 2010 Census: Implications for Apportionment, Redistricting, and the Economy, was organized in conjunction with the House Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census, which oversees the Census Bureau. U.S. Chief Statistician (Office of Management and Budget) Katherine Wallman chaired a panel presentation on the nuts and bolts of the census process and why an accurate census is important for congressional apportionment, redrawing legislative districts, and decision-making in the private sector. Preston Jay Waite, Associate Director for the Decennial Census, reviewed the status of planning for Census 2010. Content for the census and ACS must be finalized by January 2007. Compared to the 2000 census, Mr. Waite said, the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program will begin earlier and give more time for local officials to review preliminary address lists; LUCA will be completed by October 2008, so that census workers can begin block-by-block canvassing to confirm addresses. Joseph Salvo, Population Division Director in New York Citys Department of City Planning, focused his remarks on what he called the sizable and growing number of housing units in communities of all sizes for which traditional mail-out/mail-back enumeration does not work well. Dr. Salvo described multi-unit homes and apartment buildings without separate apartment numbers for each unit, often in areas with sizable immigrant populations. He suggested an alternative counting method, called Update/Enumerate, in neighborhoods where this type of housing is pervasive. In Update/Enumerate, a version of which the Census Bureau has employed previously in areas with non-traditional housing such as Indian reservations, census takers go from building to building with an address list, correcting the list as necessary and enumerating each unit as they go. Mr. Waite acknowledged the value of alternative approaches, but cautioned that Update/Enumerate is far more expensive than collecting information by mail and that the Census Bureau must effectively identify and target neighborhoods where difficult address situations are clustered in order for the method to work. Cathy McCully, chief of the bureaus redistricting office, discussed the five-phase program for meeting legal requirements (Public Law 94-171) to provide states with detailed census tabulations used in redistricting. Michael Carliner, Staff Vice President for Economics at the National Association of Home Builders, described the important uses of ACS data in the private sector, including analysis of investment and growth opportunities, labor markets, consumer demographics, and housing needs. John Cuaderes, staff director of the census subcommittee, told the audience that it is Congress obligation to ensure an accurate census in 2010. The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), is reviewing federal funding formulas that rely in whole or in part on data from the old census long form, to help authorizing committees develop new legislative language that would tie funding to ACS data instead. Mr. Cuaderes urged census stakeholders to work together in support of adequate funding for the census and the ACS and to contact legislators with influence over the budget process. Census Bureau rejects change in prisoner count: The Census Bureau has concluded that changing the way it counts prisoners in the census would result in increased cost [and] decreased accuracy for a possibly large proportion of millions of individuals confined on Census day, according to a report released in February. Such a change could also have a negative impact on the count of other so-called Group Quarters, such as college dorms and military barracks, the report said. The report, Tabulating Prisoners at Their Permanent Home of Record Address, was prepared at the request of Congress in the bureaus 2006 funding bill. Under current Census Bureau rules, inmates are counted at the facility where they are incarcerated. The bureau estimates there will be 2.6 million people (adults and juveniles) in federal, state, and local correctional institutions in 2010. The Census Bureau would need specific address information in order to include prisoners in block-level census counts used for redistricting. The Census Bureau considered two methods for enumerating prisoners at their pre-incarceration address: compiling the necessary data through administrative records or interviewing all inmates individually. Administrative records from the Justice Department and local correctional facilities are incomplete, inconsistent, and not updated, the bureau found; some prisoner records do not contain complete addresses or addresses that match the census Master Address File. The Census Bureau determined that it would have to individually interview all prisoners, which would require extensive coordination with corrections officials and special procedures to ensure safety and confidentiality. In addition, the bureau concluded, it would have to verify all addresses that do not match its master address list and also would have to interview residents of the address provided to confirm that the prisoner is somehow related to that household. It would cost $250 million to interview all prisoners, the bureau estimated. According to the report, the Census Bureau enumerated about two million prisoners in 2000 through a combination of special questionnaires used in Group Quarters (called an Individual Census Report) and administrative records. The bureau authorized and trained staff at many correctional facilities to help administer the count. The report noted that, There is no generally agreed-upon definition of permanent home of record. In 1990 and 2000, members of the armed forces and federal civilian employees stationed overseas during the census were counted at their home of record for purposes of congressional apportionment only, using administrative records from federal agencies. Home of record in the military indicates where the service member lived when he/she enlisted, often many years in the past. Congress grappled for several years with the question of where to count this population before the House of Representatives approved a bill to include overseas military and federal personnel at their home of record in the state population totals used for apportionment. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), a member of the appropriations panel that funds the Census Bureau, said in a press release that the report had not evaluated all options fully. This Census report ignores a central tenet of the Census Bureaus mission: to provide an accurate picture of our nation, the congressman said. Counting prisoners at their pre-incarceration address is important, he said, because their home communities must help released prisoners reintegrate into society [and] assess their funding priorities. Rep. Serrano criticized the report for only examin[ing] one option for implementing this alternative counting process and for not analyz[ing] several lower cost possibilities. The congressman also said he believed that implementing a fair and precise census is worth the cost. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, an advocate of counting prisoners at their pre-incarceration address, also criticized the bureaus report, saying the Census Bureau focuses primarily on the most burdensome and expensive way to collect information. The Centers executive director, Michael Waldman, said the report shows either short shrift in a work product, or a shocking lack of creativity and vision. The Centers Criminal Justice Program submitted its own report to the bureau in February, Home in 2010: A Report on the Feasibility of Enumerating People in Prison at their Home Addresses in the Next Census. The document suggested several methods for determining a home address for inmates, including administrative records, distributing census forms to prisoners, conducting interviews if necessary to ensure complete information, and counting people who do not have a home address at the correctional facility. The Census Bureaus report is available on the agencys web site at http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/tabulating_prison…. The Brennan Centers report is available at http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/cj/Home%20in%202010.pdf. Significant Census 2010 contracts awarded: The Census Bureau has awarded several major contracts covering field data collection and data processing for the 2010 census. The agency awarded a five-year, $600 million contract to a team led by Harris Corporation, for development of hand-held computers that census takers will use to collect information from households requiring personal visits. Harris, which also is responsible for updating the digital geographic mapping system (TIGER), is teaming with Unisys, Accenture LLP, Sprint, Dell Computer Corp., Oracle, and other companies to supply the IT infrastructure, support services, hardware and software for the Field Data Collection Automation Project. Under a separate contract, Microsoft Corporation will provide mobile-phone software for 500,000 handsets to be used by enumerators in the field. The Census Bureau has also started reaching out to advertising and public relations companies in anticipation of developing its campaign to promote the 2010 census. The bureau met with industry representatives in February to discuss objectives for a census promotion and outreach campaign and to better understand current industry practices. The Census Bureau has not said when it will issue a Request for Proposal or how much the contract would be worth. Advertising powerhouse Young & Rubicam led the promotion team in 2000 under a contract worth about $100 million. Census advisory committee spring meetings: The Census Bureaus five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees will meet on April 26 28; the 2010 Census Advisory Committee will meet on May 11 12. The Census Advisory Committee of Professional Associations is scheduled to meet on May 18 19. All meetings are open to the public. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC, with support from The Annie E. Casey Foundation and other organizations. Ms. Lowenthal is also a consultant to The Census Project, sponsored by the Communications Consortium Media Center. All views expressed in the News Briefs are solely those of the author. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at TerriAnn2K(a)aol.com. Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested individuals and organizations. -- Ed Christopher 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell) FHWA RC-TST-PLN 19900 Governors Dr Olympia Fields, IL 60461 _______________________________________________ ctpp-news mailing list ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net http://www.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news