Census Project Urges Census Bureau to Consider Agency’s Funding Needs

Census Project Urges Census Bureau to Consider Agency’s Funding Needs

On October 8, The Census Project Co-Directors Mary Jo Mitchell and Howard Fienberg sent Census Bureau Director Robert Santos a letter encouraging the agency to request a funding anomaly if another continuing resolution (CR) is needed after the current Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 CR expires on December 20.

In the letter, the co-directors reiterated “stakeholder concerns that we are nearing a precarious point in the decennial cycle where simple flat funding could jeopardize preparations for the 2030 Census, particularly the upcoming field tests.” They pointed to the experience of the last decade’s run-up to the 2020 Census in which the Bureau, as the result of budget uncertainties, canceled three site tests to evaluate updated counting methods in rural communities and on American Indian reservations. Unfortunately, the letter reminded Director Santos, “American Indians living on reservations suffered the highest net undercount of any race group in the 2020 Census, and rural households were missed at a higher rate than nonrural households.”

The letter urged the Census Bureau to be vocal about the potentially damaging impacts of flat funding if Congress and the Administration are compelled to pass more CRs to keep the Federal government running beyond the first quarter of this fiscal year.

Congress is expected to return to Washington, D.C. on November 12 for a post-election lame duck session to complete its work on all of the FY 2025 appropriations bills, including the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill which funds the Census Bureau.