Census Bureau: At Least $4 Billion in Cost Overruns and Counting
Despite a $1 billion injection of money from the 2009 stimulus package, the Census Bureau is still struggling to perform routine tasks like criminal background checks and accurate cost estimation for the 2010 Census.
Over the last two days, the Census Bureau has been hit with a deluge of criticism after a Senate subcommittee hearing revealed the botching of nearly 36,000 criminal background checks and $88 million in cost overruns during the initial stages of the census.
On Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the ranking member on the House subcommittee for the census, condemned the “bureaucratic incompetence that [led] to the hiring of criminals as census takers,” saying that the Census Bureau’s failures were “unacceptable.”
The hearing also disclosed a budget estimation error of nearly $4 billion, a figure that could rise as the Bureau scrambles to make more accurate cost models.
The budget estimation process has gone so poorly that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said on Wednesday that Congress might have to “salvage what we can” of the 2010 census. McCain continued by suggesting “tighter controls” on the census budgeting process.
Despite the criticism that the Bureau is receiving, Census director Robert Groves is escaping relatively unscathed. “His fingerprints are not on [these] problems he inherited,” asserted Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) at the subcommittee hearing, “As a matter of fact... because he’s there, it’s probably going to cost less than what it would have had he not been there.”
Rep. McHenry’s spokesperson, Brock McCleary echoed these sentiments, denouncing the Bureau while expressing faith in Dr. Groves’ capabilities: “Clearly somewhere at the Bureau, there's a breakdown... [but] we haven’t lost faith in Dr. Groves. We’ve lost a lot of faith in the very large bureaucracy out at the Census Bureau.”
It remains to be seen whether the Census Bureau will improve its procedures for subsequent criminal record checks. “The real risk is [in] future field operations, especially for nonresponsive follow-up [where] around 600,000 enumerators will go door to door to collect data from households that did not mail back their census forms,” said GAO Director for Strategic Issues Robert Goldenkoff.
Regrettably, perhaps the only substantive suggestion provided thus far has involved FBI-approved hand lotion. “Some people have drier fingers than other people. If you have real dry hands, fingerprints don’t take as well. So we’re using some lotion that the FBI suggested,” said Dr. Groves during his hearing.
According to McCleary, the ball is in the Census Bureau’s court: “they need to communicate to us what it is they're doing to correct these problems and when we can expect some results.”
However, the aide to Rep. McHenry also left the door open to hearings on both cost overruns and the poorly executed criminal record checks: “We'll have to look at the majority and Chairman Clay to arrange a hearing [on the cost estimates], but certainly a hearing on the fingerprinting is warranted as well.”