Tag: sequester

Limping Along the Road to 2020

Terri Ann Lowenthalby Terri Ann Lowenthal

So where were we, census fans?

As we rub the sleep out of our post-government shutdown eyes, and revel in data on the re-opened Census Bureau website, we are faced with the prospect that the uphill climb to Census 2020 just got a little steeper. Okay, maybe a whole lot steeper.

Let’s consider the good news first. The federal government is open for business. Surveys are in the field again. Economic indicators are, well, lagging, but the Census Bureau will publish them in due time. Small-city, county, town and neighborhood data from the American Community Survey will be late, but we’ll have them before year’s end.

Now the gloomy news. The federal government is running on last year’s gas tank. That ramp-up in funding to complete decennial census research and testing? Fuhgeddaboudit. With sequestration and across-the-board cuts, the Census Bureau’s budget was already 11 percent below the request for FY2013. That fiscal year has come and gone, but the ghost of budgets past will linger for at least a few more months in the form of a Continuing Resolution that expires on January 15. Not only is there no modest, yet vital, funding boost into the second quarter of FY2014, there is no way to dig out of the 2013 hole yet. Budget uncertainty plus inadequate funding equals increased risk of cut-corners and missed savings opportunities.

What’s at risk? The bureau has already pushed back a critical milestone — to select the 2020 Census design framework — by a year, to the end of FY2015. The National Content Test will be a year late, too, in 2016. That doesn’t leave much time to scrub the results before the legally-required content submission to Congress by April 1, 2017.

Now comes word that the Census Bureau is suspending work on several 2020 research and testing projects. It has “temporarily” reassigned 86 employees to other divisions because the money just isn’t there, and won’t fill a similar number of vacancies for 2020 Census planning unless it gets a sufficient funding boost for FY2014. People, this is not a promising sign of robust progress towards fundamental census reform. Congress can twiddle its thumbs while the fiscal clock ticks away, but the Census Bureau cannot defer the day of reckoning — April 1, 2020.

The Census Director says the agency will be able to complete the most critical 2020 Census activities planned for the current fiscal year. So why am I still tossing and turning at night? The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified IT management as a “long-standing” decennial census shortcoming. But thanks to sequestration and other budget cuts, acquisitions and systems development for 2020 will start a year later than planned. Let’s hope the bureau doesn’t have to cut corners when it comes to integrating and perfecting IT and field infrastructure.

Then there are promising strategies for maximizing electronic self-response on the front end and increasing follow-up efficiency on the back end. But is cyber-response the antidote to Congress’s census sticker-shock nightmare? Consider phishing scams, NSA-fueled privacy jitters, and finicky rural Wi-Fi connections before you answer. Can you imagine inviting scores of millions of households to participate online and not fully load-testing the system? Can you say healthcare.gov?

Maybe lawmakers should repeat Cyclical Program Ramp-up 101, before the 2020 Census is back to paper, postage and pencils — for twice the price.

The Cycle of Life, Part Two: Time to Ramp It Up

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

Last week, I gave a little tutorial on the lifecycle cost of a decennial census. You know: “The seasons, they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down.” Up and down are the operative words; right now, the cycle is in up mode. Meaning the Census Bureau needs modest funding increases each year to stay on an efficient, productive research and planning schedule that will save billions of dollars in implementation costs over the entire lifecycle.

Did I just date myself terribly? (“Like” if you remember that song!) But, I digress. President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014) $982.5 million budget request for the Census Bureau barely budged over his request for the current year. Embedded in that overall agency number is $486 million for the 2020 Census, which includes the ongoing American Community Survey (ACS).

The ACS is really a bargain, folks. Its $242 million price tag is an infinitesimal half a thousandth of a percent of the federal aid directed prudently (Congress enacts the formulas, after all) each year to states and localities for schools, roads and transit systems, rural economic development projects, health care, job training, crime prevention programs, and other state and local activities, based (directly or indirectly) on data the ACS yields annually. Businesses and community-based nonprofits use the data to make billions (and billions and billions) of dollars in investment and program decisions that spur job growth, commerce and economic development. And the survey is now a two-for-one deal: it’s a rolling test bed for new methods and systems that could reduce 2020 Census costs considerably.

Speaking of 2020 (just around the corner… see my last blog post!), the president requested an increase of $154.2 million to finish the research and testing phase, allowing the Census Bureau to select a design framework and move forward with operational and systems development in subsequent years. Key elements of census reform could include broad use of administrative records to keep the address list up-to-date and to identify unresponsive households during the enumeration, as well as multi-mode response options that take advantage of the latest tech gadgets. Without thorough research and testing, the bureau might fall back on a far more expensive (but tried and true) paper and pencil design. Which Congress already has said it won’t pay for, by the way.

As Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser warned Senate and House appropriators this week, “To achieve cost savings, the Bureau is exploring new and innovative design alternatives based on evidence from its research and testing operations. However, the Bureau may be seeing signs of delays due to budget reductions and schedule slippage in its 2010 decennial census evaluation program and the 2020 decennial research and testing program.”

The problem, in other words, is that the Census Bureau already is positioned fiscally to fall behind, because Congress whacked about 13 percent from its 2020 Census budget request for the current year, what with sequestration and across-the-board cuts. The bureau will need its full FY2014 request of $244.8 million for 2020 Census planning just to stay on top of things.

So here we are, once again, facing an uphill battle for a reasonable investment in two of the nation’s premier statistical programs, both of which return far more to a democracy and informed decision-making than they will ever cost. Time to buckle down, census stakeholders, and fight the good (if often unrecognized) fight!

A Fine Kettle of Budget Fish

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

Last spring, the census world was in turmoil.

First, the venerable House Committee on Appropriations voted (H.R. 5326) to slash $92 million from the Census Bureau’s FY2013 budget request ($970.4M), most ($85.9M) of which would affect core programs — including the American Community Survey (ACS), decennial census planning and the quinquennial (I love saying that word!) Economic Census — in the Periodic Censuses and Programs account. Then, the full House of Representatives decided Americans could “just say no” to the ACS by making response optional instead of mandatory. This seemingly innocuous change would reduce mail response by 20 percent (more for some population subgroups) and boost survey costs by more than a third ($60-$70 million), according to a 2003 test. (For the benefit of legislators with short-term memories, it was Congress that mandated the test.)

But wait, to heck with having a choice, lawmakers said; let’s just scrap the whole survey! And while we’re at it, let’s cut an additional $24 million from Periodic Censuses… which left the Census Bureau to wonder if it could pull off the 2012 Economic Census and ACS (even if Congress let it) at all.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Congress can make some dubious decisions. But talk about biting the hand that feeds you! According to a Brookings Institution analysis, lawmakers allocated $416 billion in federal grants, direct payments and loans based on data derived directly or indirectly from the ACS. Call me obtuse, but how would Congress distribute that money if the data suddenly disappeared? Throw darts at a map of states and counties? Hold a highway-money lottery? (And don’t tell me that not allocating those funds is a golden opportunity to reduce federal spending; when was the last time a member of Congress turned down funds to pave a highway or assist firefighters in his or her district?)

Over in the “gentleman’s club” (clear throat), appropriators managed to stay calm, proposing a FY2013 funding level in line with the president’s request. The full Senate couldn’t quite muster the strength to take up the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill (S. 2323) before lawmakers raced home for the November elections. But House and Senate negotiators are now working to set final budget numbers for the Census Bureau before a temporary FY2013 funding bill (the Continuing Resolution, which extended agency operations at FY2012 funding levels) runs out on March 25. Let’s hope House members awake from a nine-month slumber with renewed sagacity and see the error of their penny-wise, pound-foolish ways.

Meanwhile, the president will send his FY2014 budget blueprint to Congress no earlier than March 4, at least one month later than a toothless law requires. But not to worry, there’s lots of intervening excitement brewing. The so-called “sequester” of the FY2013 budget — the product of legislators’ failure to actually agree on budget numbers for the fiscal year that started many moons ago — will take effect on March 1 unless Congress… well, agrees on something. If it doesn’t, federal agencies will have to cough up $85 billion, amounting roughly to a 5 percent across-the-board cut for non-defense domestic discretionary programs.

This week, President Obama challenged Congress to avoid that consequence by specifying funding cuts (coupled with revenue increases, which Republicans aren’t eager to embrace, but I’m not here to argue fiscal policy) before the budget coach turns into a pumpkin. What will happen between now and then is crystal-ball material, but Commerce Department Inspector General Todd J. Zinser had some wise observations for Congress at a Senate hearing last summer: “[T]he Census Bureau must analyze the 2020 decennial [census] design alternatives and make a decision by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2014… Decisions made during this decade’s early years will be critical for setting the course for how well the 2020 count is performed and how much it will ultimately cost.” With the Economic Census off the launch pad, the remaining two core programs — the ACS and the 2020 census — will feel the greatest budget squeeze absent sufficient funding for the Census Bureau. And the nation will be headed for a data vacuum or an expensive, incomplete decennial count, or both.

Are you still with me? Good, because it seems like we’ve gone from last spring’s mess to complete budget disarray. Good luck trying to keep up with this winter’s mayhem!

* * *

Correction: My last blog post mentioned a Census Dress Rehearsal in 2018. Historically, the Census Bureau has conducted a dry-run in two or three locations in the year ending in “8,” to evaluate operations in a census-like environment. But alas, there will be no such walk-through this decade. Former Census Director Robert Groves significantly retooled the planning phase of the census for 2020, in order to contain costs and take advantage of other opportunities (including using the American Community Survey as a test bed) to evaluate and tweak components of the census design. I apologize for the error — maybe I’m just getting nostalgic?