IT Problems Put Accuracy of Census at Risk

[Guest FroggyOne2]

CNSNews.com - IT Problems Put Accuracy of Census at Risk, Say Government Auditors

IT Problems Put Accuracy of Census at Risk, Say Government Auditors

Monday, March 29, 2010

By Edwin Mora

Seal of the U.S. Census Bureau

Washington D.C. (CNSNews.com) – Information Technology (IT) problems at the U.S. Census Bureau could cause inaccuracies in this year's constitutionally mandated decennial tabulation of the U.S. population, according to government auditors.

“IT problems place the efficiency and accuracy of Non-Response Follow-Up at risk and final decennial costs remain uncertain,†testified Judith Gordon, the principal assistant inspector general for Audit and Evaluation at the Department of Commerce, which runs the Census Bureau.

The NRFU is the census’ largest operation and involves personally interviewing millions of people nationwide who did not respond to the mailed Census questionnaire.

Robert Goldenkoff, the director of strategic issues for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told CNSNews.com that “an estimated 50 million housing units out of a mail-out universe of about 120 million†will be non-respondents that will require an in-person follow-up to count.

According to the Census Bureau: “As a part of the decennial census operations, the U.S. Census Bureau creates an address list of housing units in the United States, and mails out census forms to most of those housing units. People who do not mail back their census forms are visited by a census interviewer who comes to record their data during a personal interview. This visit is a part of the Non-Response Follow-Up (NRFU) operation.â€

Goldenkoff, Gordon, and Arnold Jackson, the associate director for the decennial count at the Census Bureau, testified at a March 25 hearing on the 2010 Census. The hearing was held by the subcommittee on the Census of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Census Bureau is specifically having problems with two IT systems. One is the Paper-Based Operational Control System (PBOC), which is an computer system used to manage the information collected during field operations such as NRFU.

The second is Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll System (DAPPS), which is the system used to keep track of, and pay, the more than 600,000 temporary federal workers who help conduct the Census’s NFRU field operations.

Last Thursday, the Government Accountability Office released a report authored by Goldenkoff on the Census Bureau’s IT problems entitle, “Data Collection is Under Way, But Reliability of Key Information Technology Systems Remains a Risk.†The report indicated that the government has known about the problem for some time.

The report said that last February, the GAO had testified that “key IT systems -- most notably an automated system used to manage field data collection known as the Paper-Based Operations Control System (PBOCS) and a personnel and payroll processing system called the Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll System (DAPPS) -- were experiencing significant performance issues.†The report documents Goldenkoff's testimony before the House subcommittee.

The Bureau has been in the process of hiring an estimated 600,000 people to conduct the NRFU operation from May through July 2010 -- the interviewers will be trained in April.

During the hearing, Goldenkoff warned that “little time is left†to correct the IT problems that affect NRFU.

The IT component used to “manage Non-Response Follow-Up, the largest Census field operation, is still being tested and it’s scheduled to be released in mid-April,†explained Goldenkoff.

“This is about three weeks later than planned and barely ahead of when the Non-Response Follow-Up is scheduled to begin in early May,†he added. “As a result, little time will be left to resolve any problems identified during testing.â€

Nevertheless, the Census Bureau's Jackson was optimistic that the bureau would be successful in its count despite the highlighted IT problems.

“We feel that we are more than prepared to do a successful Non-Response Follow-Up at a range of response estimates on time and within the budget we have,†testified Jackson.

The operating budget for NRFU is $2.7 billion, according to Goldenkoff’s written testimony.

As a result of the IT deficiencies, it is difficult to accurately provide a final cost for the 2010 Census, which is currently estimated at around $14.7 billion.

Key information technology systems continue to experience performance functionality shortfalls and these systems can affect the ultimate scheduled cost and success of the Census,†said Gordon.

Goldenkoff pointed out that not addressing the IT problems could result in the Census costing more than the ballpark $14.7 billion figure.

“It certainly will affect cost if you want to be totally precise about it,†Goldenkoff told CNSNews.com.

“If the automated processes aren’t working properly, if there are shortcomings with that, then one work around is bringing more people to do the job manually and obviously more people, more staff time, and it could increase costs that way,†he explained.

Gordon and Goldenkoff acknowledged that the Census is working towards resolving its IT problems.

“While our testimony today discusses serious IT system challenges, we are mindful of the extraordinary efforts being made by a very dedicated Census staff to achieve a successful outcome,†said Gordon.

Americans are expected to use April 1, the National Census Day, as a reference point for mailing back their Census questionnaire.

Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution calls for a decennial enumeration of the American people to be used for allocating U.S. House seats among the states.

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The comments section.. is no surprise.. more and more are seeing the light I truly hope!

[enfield]

Gee - if they limited their data mining to just the Constitutionally-mandated headcount, it'd be a lot easier, wouldn't it?

Not to mention cheaper?

[mcurrier]

Awww man! And I really had faith in the accuracy of the census. Damn it!

[TGO David]

Performance issues... meaning that the systems weren't initially scaled large enough to handle the amount of data collected. Ok, so? It's not like it will be difficult to add more resources.