Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Maloney, and Members of the Committee:

I want to begin by thanking you for your leadership in establishing the bipartisan congressional support for a public partnership between the Congress and the Census Bureau to promote the decennial census. It sends a strong message all across America that all of us should be united in the goal of achieving a complete and accurate Census 2000. Since this partnership was launched, Members of Congress have really taken on the challenge of promoting Census 2000, including holding local town hall meetings, producing public service announcements, participating in local census office grand openings, and publicizing census jobs and promotional information in congressional newsletters. You, Chairman Miller and Mrs. Maloney, have taken the lead by participating in the Census 2000 campaign launch and holding your own Census in Schools events in your districts, and we hope many Members will do the same. All your efforts are very much appreciated.

Census 2000 is Progressing on Schedule

Since I reported to you last fall, the actual enumeration for Census 2000 has begun. We have produced a Master Address File containing approximately 120 million addresses, have printed the questionnaires that will go to each of those addresses, have opened all 520 local census offices, are intensely promoting the census and actively seeking to hire the army of workers we will need to do the job. In short, we are prepared to take the best census that we can.

Census Day, April 1, is 53 days from now, but as we speak, census takers are systematically canvassing the remote areas of Alaska to complete a questionnaire for each housing unit and its inhabitants. I had the honor of conducting the first enumeration on January 19 in Unalakleet, Alaska, a village on the Bering Sea about 400 miles northwest of Anchorage. I was under the supervision of a team leader because I was considered a trainee. If the warm welcome we received from the residents of snowy Unalakleet can be replicated throughout this great country, we will indeed have a successful census. Why are we already counting people in parts of Alaska? Travel is easier now than it will be when the spring thaws make the villages inaccessible and many Alaska Natives, who congregate in their villages in winter, will disperse in the spring to fish and hunt. This is just one of many examples where the Census Bureau has crafted procedures to meet specific enumeration challenges so that we can achieve as complete a count as possible in Census 2000.

So Census 2000 has begun in Alaska. In a little over 3 weeks, beginning March 3 and continuing throughout March, census enumerators will deliver questionnaires to some 20 million housing units in what we call update/leave areas of the country. These areas have several different address types, mostly in small towns and rural areas where address systems have less geographic structure. For example, an address might be "Rural Route 1" or it might be a postal box number. Census enumerators, in addition to leaving a questionnaire at each address, will also check for any missing addresses. Householders are asked to complete the questionnaire and mail it back in the postage-paid envelope.

In about five weeks, beginning March 13 and continuing through March 15, the U.S. Postal Service will deliver questionnaires to some 98 million addresses in what we call mailout/mailback areas of the country. These are areas where the housing units have city-style addresses, such as "101 Main Street" or "310 Oak Street, Apt. A." These addresses are mostly in major urban centers but also in many small and mid-sized towns and some rural areas. As in update/leave areas, householders are asked to complete the questionnaire and mail it back.

Also beginning March 13 and continuing throughout March and April, census enumerators will visit fewer than a million housing units in what we call list/enumerate areas. These are remote rural areas or areas with significant seasonal resident populations where it is not efficient to compile a precensus address list. At the time census enumerators visit each housing unit, they will list the unit and complete a questionnaire. There is no separate nonresponse followup in these areas because residents are not asked to mail back their questionnaires.

Because not everyone in mailout/mailback and update/leave areas will complete and mail back their census questionnaires, we estimate we will have to send enumerators to visit approximately 46 million housing units in the nonresponse followup operation. Nonresponse followup is scheduled to begin April 27 and will continue for 10 weeks until the first week of July.

Marketing

Through our marketing program we are aggressively seeking to encourage response to the census so that we can keep the nonresponse workload as small as possible. We began our paid advertising campaign last November, placing ads to educate people about the importance and potential benefits of the census. We have now entered the second phase of our paid advertising campaign designed to motivate response with the message "This is Your Future. Don't Leave it Blank." We kicked off the motivational phase of our advertising campaign during the second quarter of the Super Bowl game. The 30-second ad focused on education and how returning the census forms can lead to local funding to ease school overcrowding.

During the months of February and March, Census 2000 will be among the top two or three advertisers in the nation. Ads will appear on every television network and on cable television, radio, magazines, newspapers, billboards, subways, buses, and so on. Overall, the Census 2000 advertising campaign will comprise some 250 different creative elements and more than 130,000 individual media placements.

Paid advertising is just one piece of the Census Bureau's integrated marketing strategy for Census 2000. The other pieces include partnerships, the direct mail package (advance letter, questionnaire, and thank you/reminder postcard), media relations, and promotions and special events. Each piece has its own strengths and by working in concert will reach and motivate everyone to participate in Census 2000.

As I have said previously, partnership is the most important of these pieces. We already have some 55,000 partnership agreements and Complete Count Committees in state, local, and tribal governments, businesses, and national and community-based organizations. Educators have ordered over 800,000 teaching kits for use in our Census in Schools initiative.

In January, Secretary Daley and I announced a new initiative to encourage grassroots participation in Census 2000 in every town, city, county, state, and tribal area in the nation. We are calling this initiative "How America Knows What America Needs." We are providing local elected officials with tools to use in encouraging their constituents to complete and mail back their census forms and to cooperate with enumerators. These tools include sample news releases, articles, talking points, and other written materials; a dedicated website to enable participants to obtain updated information and download promotional materials; and a toll-free number to allow elected officials to call for additional information. We are also challenging communities to increase their overall response rates in Census 2000 by at least five percentage points over their 1990 level. We are calling this component '90 Plus Five, which means we are encouraging a 70 percent national response rate--the 65 percent from 1990 plus 5. To gauge progress, Census 2000 response rates for each jurisdiction will be posted on the Internet and updated daily from March 27 to April 11. A second component of "How America Knows What America Needs" is called Because You Count. This component is aimed at increasing cooperation with census enumerators when they come knocking on doors.

Our goal with the "How America Knows What America Needs" initiative is to convert the census into a civic event of the highest order. As of now, more than 700 government entities have become official partners in this campaign.

On February 15, 2000, 12 vans will set out from 12 locations across the country to promote Census 2000. They will operate until April 15. Each vehicle will be equipped with exhibits, videos, printed information, and other giveaways to spread the message that Census

2000 is on its way. This Road Tour is designed to generate media attention in various markets-- from small towns to large cities--and enhance the efforts of our partnership and media specialists. Each of these 12 "mobile headquarters" is a rolling resource to help our thousands of partners and Complete Count Committees promote the census in their organizations, communities

and governments. It will also reinforce the advertising messages that will be on television, radio, billboards, and in magazines and newspapers.

Hiring

Hiring is progressing well and we have no reason, at this time, to believe that we will not reach our goals. We have met our hiring goals for every operation thus far. In early January, we launched a blitz to hire some 500,000 temporary census workers to fill about 860,000 Census 2000 jobs, most of which will be for nonresponse followup. Some temporary workers will hold more than one job. We believe we will need to recruit 3 million individuals to apply for these jobs--six per position--because of anticipated turnover, applicants who fail background checks, and so on. We want to have a qualified applicant pool of 2.4 million individuals. Our goal is to hire local people who are familiar with their communities and committed to a successful count in their own neighborhoods. So far, we have recruited nearly 1.3 million qualified applicants, slightly more than half of the total needed, and slightly ahead of our target. Our goal is to reach 100 percent recruitment by April 19.

Pay rates range from $8.25 to $18.50 depending on locality, hours are flexible, and U.S. citizenship is not required, so we encourage legal residents 18 years old and over to call the toll-free number, 1-888-325-7733, if they are interested in applying.

To keep on target with recruitment goals, we are using paid advertising on television, radio, print ads, and on buses. We have also established a job information site on the Internet. In one recent week, we had over 400,000 calls to our telephone jobline and nearly 700,000 hits on our Internet recruitment pages, so there is great and growing interest in census jobs.

We are partnering with a number of organizations to help us achieve our goals. I will mention just two such partnerships. Under a grant from the Department of Labor, Goodwill Industries is working to identify welfare-to-work participants who are qualified for census jobs and is using its retail stores to distribute recruiting information to individuals who are not in the welfare-to-work program. We are also partnering with the Corporation for National Service, which has 30,000 partner agencies with more than 700,000 volunteers in its three programs, to assist us in our recruitment efforts.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I will address the specific issues in your letter of invitation.

The status and a brief overview of the Census 2000 operational timeline, and what key activities and dates lay ahead. Please include, but do not limit your testimony to, the date that census questionnaires are mailed to households, the cut-off date for processing mailed questionnaires that households mail back to processing centers, and the start date for non-response follow-up.

I provided some key dates earlier in the testimony. I will just provide some additional ones here.

On March 3, we will begin telephone questionnaire assistance operations and these will run through June 8. There will be 6 toll-free telephone numbers (in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog) people can call to get assistance in filling out their questionnaire, get replacement questionnaires, get language assistance guides, or provide their census questionnaire information. Beginning March 8 and continuing through mid-April we will conduct questionnaire assistance center operations at pre-designated walk-in sites.

In the first week of March, we will mail out advance letters to nearly every housing unit that we are asking to return their form by mail. The purpose of this letter is to inform householders that they will soon get their questionnaire and to encourage them to mail it back. We also provide an opportunity in this letter for those who want a form in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Tagalog to request one.

Beginning on March 20, we will mail out a reminder card to those housing units we are asking to return a form by mail. Many will have already mailed back their forms, but this reminder will spur others to do so as soon as possible.

On March 27, and continuing through March 29, we will conduct the enumeration of persons with no usual residence at shelters and outdoor locations, and who use soup kitchens and mobile food vans. Specific operations will be conducted on specific days during this period.

April 11 is the cutoff date for identifying housing units that have not mailed back a questionnaire so we can include them in the nonresponse followup workload. We will continue to receive and process mail returns after that date. On April 17, we will produce a late mail return file that we will transmit to the local census offices so they can delete those addresses from their nonresponse followup assignments. Our schedule calls for us to complete mail-return data capture by May 27.

The status of the Census Bureau's address listing programs and the New Construction Program.

As I testified last September, LUCA has been a big success. Nearly twice as many local and tribal governments are participating in LUCA as participated in the equivalent 1990 program. Nearly half of the Nation's 39,000 local and tribal governments, covering about 85 percent of all addresses, participated in LUCA. LUCA and block canvass operations added a net 5.5 million addresses in mailout/mail back areas. We are completing the Census Bureau's last phase of the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Program by providing final determination materials to participants. The final determination materials indicate, as a result of our field checks, our response to each of their LUCA suggestions, i.e., which addresses submitted by local participants we have accepted.

Localities are using these results to decide whether they wish to appeal any addresses to the Census Address List Appeals Office, an independent office established by the Office of Management and Budget in accordance with the provisions of Public Law 103-430. The Appeals Office reports that it has thus far processed about 45,000 addresses from eligible entities. Of those 45,000 appealed addresses, the Appeals Office has accepted about 36,000, rejected about 7,000, and the rest are under review. If we do not receive a questionnaire from an address added as part of the Appeals process, and if we have not already field-verified the address, an enumerator will visit the address and, if it was occupied on Census Day, conduct an interview.

We have started the mailout of materials, address lists and maps, for nearly 5,900 entities that indicated they want to participate in the New Construction Program. This program will allow entities to identify the addresses of houses that have been built since the Census Bureau did block canvassing in the winter/spring of 1999. Census enumerators will visit these housing units and, if occupied, conduct an interview.

The upcoming shift in the Census 2000 paid advertising campaign. Please be prepared to answer questions about advertising buys in Subcommittee Members' home districts. In addition, please provide written documentation of the flight schedules by Census Bureau region or media market, and detailed explanation of spending including ad purchases, promotional materials and other partnership costs.

I described earlier the shift of our advertising campaign into the motivational phase. Since Nov. 1, television ads, targeting undecided or passive audiences, as well as those least likely to respond, have been running during daytime programming. Now television ads will appear on every broadcast network in the nation, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, UPN, WB, Telemundo and Univision, as well as many cable networks, such as the International Channel, MTV, the History Channel and many more. Some of the network shows that will air census ads are General Hospital, The Practice, Chicago Hope, Cosby, ER, Frazier, Saturday Night Live, Ally McBeal, and the Simpsons.

Radio, too, is a critical component of the Census 2000 advertising campaign. Radio network buys have been supplemented by buys on local stations with formats that range from hip-hop to oldies and talk radio to rock. The census ads are being placed in 17 languages. Over the course of the Census Bureau's ad campaign, more than 70,000 radio ads about Census 2000 will be broadcast. And that does not include the many public service announcements (PSAs) that the Census Bureau and some of its partners will be placing and the free advertising that comes with news coverage of the census.

Many national magazines have already carried the Census 2000 message, in articles, ads and editorials. In the next couple of months, ads will be appearing in national newspapers and magazines, such as People, Sports Illustrated, Ebony, Time, Ladies' Home Journal, Hot Rod, Vibe, Essence and hundreds of foreign-language publications.

The print ad campaign does not stop there, however. Local magazines and newspapers around the country, chosen by the Census Bureau's regional census centers for their penetration in hard-to-enumerate communities, will receive Census 2000 advertising.

Even if people do not watch television, listen to the radio or read newspapers or magazines, they will see the advertising as they wait for a bus, ride on a subway or drive down a highway. Census 2000 ads will be placed on bus shelters and on buses, on billboards and in subways. Mobile billboards will be driven to and around community festivals and electronic ads will be played on baseball scoreboards.

Young and Rubicam (Y&R) and its partner agencies have been extremely successful in their media negotiations in getting additional value for the taxpayers' money -- both in terms of money saved and additional time or space. The first requirement of the media buying teams is to negotiate the best prices possible for each ad.

These savings have allowed the Census Bureau to reach its audiences with a number of opportunities that were not considered early in the plan. For example, savings from negotiations were used to purchase the well received spot during the Super Bowl that I mentioned earlier and to place advertising during NBA games.

In addition to cost savings, negotiations by Y&R have generated a significant number of value-added opportunities that allow Census 2000 to be promoted, at no additional cost, more broadly and in a variety of formats. These opportunities have included editorial coverage in African American magazines and newspapers, a presence at Hispanic award shows, Internet banners and DJ endorsements, and additional PSA placements. In the case of the American Indian and Alaska Native effort, the media buy team was able to secure a one-for-one match of PSAs for each paid placement, which doubled the presence of this campaign. Negotiations also secured an unprecedented--at least for government buys--PSA on NBC. To date, value added negotiations have added $8.7 million to the promotional efforts with no additional costs to the taxpayers.

Overall, the Census Bureau budget includes $199.5 million for FY 2000 for marketing, communications, and partnerships. Of this, about $111 million is for the advertising contract (including over $102 million for media buys), $70 million is for regional and national partnerships (including staffing, in-kind materials, travel, and special promotional events), and $18 million is for "Other Promotions," which includes Census in Schools, national promotional events, media relations, and product development.

I want to comment on one other issue you requested I speak to and that is a breakdown of media spending by state or district. This is something that the Census Bureau is not able to provide for a very simple reason--the Census 2000 advertising campaign is a national campaign. Over half of the media dollars are spent on national television and radio networks and in national newspapers and magazines. It is simply not possible for the Census Bureau or Y&R to determine viewership and costs at sub-national levels. At some point in the future, research can be done to estimate these breakdowns. At present, we do not have the staff or the expertise to achieve this goal.

We do, however, appreciate the desire of members to understand the extent of advertising in their states and districts. Today, over 90 percent of the buys have been completed. In an effort to help you understand the buys and to keep this Subcommittee informed of the media buys, we have supplied to the Chairman and Ranking Member copies of the four-binder Launch Book, which provides detailed information about each of the buys by designated marketing area (DMA), by outlet type, and including specific media names and/or call letters and schedules. I am confident this will give you the information you need to understand how extensive the buys are in your communities.

Update on the status of the hiring process. Specifically, provide a breakdown by Census Bureau region of the percent of the requisite applicant pool received to date. Discuss any specific areas or targeted populations for which you fear you may not receive enough applications and explain what you plan to do to overcome this obstacle. Be prepared to answer questions about Subcommittee Members' home districts.

As I mentioned earlier, we have recruited slightly over half of our overall national goal and are slightly ahead of our target for this time. We are at 54 percent, with a goal of 49 percent for this date. Attachment A provides the recruiting status, by region, for the update/leave operation, the next big field operation that begins March 3. As you can see from the attachment, we have far exceeded our needs for update/leave in every region except one and we do not anticipate any problems reaching our goals there.

Despite the very tight labor market, we believe that there is no shortage of interest in Census 2000 jobs. Our message of competitive wages, flexible hours, and service to community and country has much appeal to those segments of the population that have worked successfully in earlier Census 2000 operations--retirees and individuals who already have full- or part-time positions. The pool of applicants continues to be largely female and over 40 years of age. More than 60 percent are women and more than 65 percent are 40 years or older. This is a very productive and reliable segment of the labor force for the challenging field work that lies ahead.

January through February is our peak recruitment advertising period with local paid advertising complemented by a tremendous outreach effort by our regional and local partnership and recruitment staff. Our recruitment advertising has included targeted direct mail, Hispanic television, transit posters in major urban areas, and ads in publications such as Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Ebony, Ladies' Home Journal, and Modern Maturity and more than 2,000 local publications. Local radio advertising, targeted largely at minority audiences, will run throughout February.

The regions are conducting different operations on different time schedules. For example, one region may have a large update/leave workload and would have the need to accelerate its recruitment over a region that has mostly mailout/mailback. That's because we will be in the field with update/leave in early March, but won't begin major field operations in mailout/mailback areas until late April. At present, we have not identified any specific areas or targeted populations where we will not be able to recruit enough applicants. We are, however, aware of the challenges presented in recruiting individuals from high-income communities where the message of earning additional pay does not resonate. Our regional census centers are adjusting their recruitment approaches to ensure that we are able to hire and retain the number of individuals to carry out census operations in these communities.

Data capture systems. Please be prepared to explain the process by which information will be extracted from census forms, duplicate forms tagged, and results of the data capture systems testing.

Let me first explain how we get people's answers into the computer for processing and tabulation. People will mail back their questionnaires to one of four data capture centers for processing. These are located in Pomona, California, Phoenix, Arizona, Baltimore County, Maryland, and Jeffersonville, Indiana. The first thing that occurs is that the questionnaires are checked in by bar-code so that we know which addresses we have received questionnaires from. Then we will scan the questionnaires--containing 1.5 billion sheets of paper--and take an electronic photograph or "image" of the questionnaire; sophisticated software will provide optical mark recognition and optical character recognition capabilities to read the marked check boxes and any handwritten entries on the questionnaire into the computer. The computer will not be able to read everyone's handwriting, so those images of the questionnaires will be sent to a census worker who will key in the correct responses.

We are in the midst of final testing of the data capture system. Our partners, Lockheed Martin and TRW, successfully completed testing and an operational dry run in the Baltimore, Maryland, Pomona, California, and the Phoenix, Arizona data capture centers. Testing and an operational dry run are underway in the Census Bureau operated center in Jeffersonville, Indiana. We expect this test to conclude later this month. We have added one last test in late-February for all centers to ensure full readiness to begin data capture in March.

Given that there will be multiple opportunities for persons to respond to the census (by mail, telephone, Internet, Be Counted forms, in person), once data collection is complete the Census Bureau will run computer programs that will identify instances of multiple responses that were data captured for a single address. For these cases, the information about persons from the multiple forms will be compared, duplication will be resolved, and a single household will be formed that will subsequently be processed as the census household for the address.

Difficulties experienced opening and operating the Local Census Offices.

All 520 local census offices are now up and running; we have recovered from fire damage in one office--the Chicago Northwest Office. For Census 2000, the Census Bureau entered into an agreement with the General Services Administration (GSA) to conduct the work of leasing, building-out, and equipping offices. This partnership has been very successful. Working under guidelines set by the Census Bureau, the GSA leased space for 520 offices, oversaw the internal construction of the offices, arranged for data and voice telecommunications and provided office equipment and supplies.

Of course, for a program of this size, several problems had to be solved. With the strong economy, there was a very poor market for short-term, small office leases. More time had to be spent by both Census Bureau and GSA staff in locating sites and negotiating leases. The private sector building boom also drew from the same small pool of carpenters, electricians, and plumbers that we needed to build out our offices. Telephone and data line installers had to meet tough deadlines, while at the same time serve their other customers. None of these conditions proved insurmountable, but they did have to be closely managed every day to be sure that the work was done right and on time.

Over the next 10 months, we will be maintaining these offices, again in partnership with GSA. We are preparing a recovery plan to deal with any loss of an office due to fire or other factors. Systems are in place to keep the offices fully supplied and functioning through the census. Again, I want to acknowledge the excellent efforts of GSA in making this partnership work.

How Census 2000 partnership programs have progressed including Complete Count Committees and "Be-Counted" site locations.

I discussed partnerships a little earlier. There are now about 12,000 Complete Count Committees (CCC's), more than three times the number established in 1990. Most of the CCC's and the partnership organizations are very focused and organized and have come up with innovative, creative, and novel approaches to promoting Census 2000. In addition to CCC-initiated activities, members are actively participating in Census Bureau sponsored activities, such as opening of local census offices.

Our partnership staff are working closely with community groups, business leaders, and local government officials to identify Be Counted sites appropriate to each community. As of February 1, staff have confirmed over 13,000 sites. At these locations, people who believe they did not receive a census form, believe they were not included on a census questionnaire returned by their household, or who have no usual address on Census Day will be able to pick up a Be Counted questionnaire.

Regional staff have also identified over 17,000 questionnaire assistance centers. These centers will provide assistance to individuals who might have difficulty completing the questionnaire because of language or other barriers. Be Counted forms will also be available at these sites.

We are continuing to work with our partners to identify additional Be Counted sites and questionnaire assistance centers.

Additionally, our partnership staff have developed several special initiatives to reach hard-to-enumerate communities. Some of the key initiatives include materials for religious leaders to motivate congregations, outreach strategies to ensure enumeration of students at minority universities, distribution of census promotional materials as part of literacy programs in rural communities, promotional aids to ensure that the hearing and visually impaired are counted, and videos in six languages on how to fill out the questionnaire.

One thing I should point out is that we are entering many thousands of partnerships with exuberant partners who want to help the census effort in any way they can. By the very nature of a partnership, we cannot control all the activities of all of our partners. So, there is the possibility that at some time over the course of the census, some negative publicity may be generated that seems to be linked to the census, but may not in fact be officially sanctioned by the Census Bureau. We are doing our best to always channel the enthusiasm of our partners in the right direction and hope we will succeed.

Barriers and procedures unique to conducting a successful enumeration of extremely rural areas, such as Alaska.

I described earlier the special procedures we have for enumerating the remote areas of Alaska and the list/enumerate areas of the rest of the country. I will add here that some of the difficulties we face in these areas include access to housing units due to poor roads, weather, and other conditions, the expense of traveling long distances between homes, limited lodging for staff, and language and cultural barriers. A death in an Alaska Native village or on an American Indian reservation or a special religious ceremony can halt the enumeration for a period out of respect for the family and local tradition. Work patterns, particularly in fishing villages and areas with large numbers of migrant workers, can have an impact on the timing and effectiveness of enumeration. Thus the need for special procedures such as those we developed for the remote areas of Alaska. For example, we will have enumerators and promotorias in the colonias of South Texas who speak Spanish and understand the culture of these areas, and in other areas we will have specialized recruitment and promotional efforts.

Internet response to Census 2000 questionnaires and tabulation processes.

For the first time, the Census Bureau will provide questionnaire assistance over the Internet and the option of answering the short-form questionnaire via the Internet. The questionnaire assistance effort will provide on-line help to respondents who need help in completing either a traditional paper questionnaire or the web-based Internet short form, as well as providing answers to other frequently asked questions about Census 2000. The Internet data collection option will allow respondents to answer an English language version short-form questionnaire over a special, secure Internet website if they can provide a valid housing unit identification number from their paper questionnaire. There will also be an English language version of the Puerto Rico short form. The Internet questionnaire assistance operation will begin March 3 (we are still determining the end date for this) and data collection will operate from March 3 to April 15, 2000.

Also, for the first time, the Census Bureau will provide Internet access to Census 2000 data through a newly developed system called the American FactFinder. Initial Census 2000 data will be available in early 2001. Data are available now in American FactFinder for the 1990 census, the 1997 Economic Census, the American Community Survey, and the Census 2000 Dress Rehearsal. Data users can use the American FactFinder to select the data they need for the geography of their choice from summary data products. Users will be able to search, browse, retrieve, view, print, save, and download data. Or they can create custom tabulations from microdata files, subject to strict confidentiality standards.

Procedures that are in place in the event the initial mail response rate falls below the threshold that you have planned for the entire nation. Please detail some of the contingency plans that are being considered.

Mr. Chairman, we have put in place a number of contingencies to deal with disasters that would force us to close a regional or local office. Our experience tells us that in an operation as enormous and far-flung as the decennial census, unforeseen events are likely to occur and we will be ready to deal with those. Our agreement with the General Services Administration includes the identification and preparation of alternative space should an office be damaged beyond repair. We also would be able to obtain additional supplies, furniture, and office equipment quickly from the GSA Customer Supply Centers, or we can purchase those on the local market, if necessary. We have emergency supplies of questionnaires available at our National Processing Center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and at each regional and local census office. We have established back-up automation systems in our regional census centers and at headquarters. We have arranged to quickly obtain computers and components, as necessary, from our supplier. GSA is working with all telecommunications contractors to participate in assuring that all data lines, as well as voice service, are restored as soon as possible in the event of an emergency.

We have plans to reassign staff from a regional or local census office that is damaged to the nearest office and will work with the GSA to restore any damaged office as quickly as possible. Contingencies are also in place in case of damage to an office specializing in operations needed to conduct the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation, and we have backup capabilities in two of four data capture centers, in case we have damage in any of them.

You specifically asked about our contingency plans in case of a lower-than-expected mail response. If the mail response rate falls below the 61 percent threshold that we have budgeted for, then the result will be an increased workload for the nonresponse followup operation. It is a challenge to hire and train the staff to conduct this operation, even if we meet our targeted mail response rate, but we are meeting that challenge. We are also confident we will achieve the targeted mail back rate. If we have a lower mail response, as we responded to the General Accounting Office report on contingency planning in December, we would have to come back to talk to the U.S. Congress.

In conclusion, I want to emphasize that Census 2000 preparations and operations are progressing on schedule. Over the next few weeks the census "presence" should be felt everywhere. And I hope that everyone who is here today will do their part and answer the census.

As you know, just yesterday the President submitted the Administration's FY 2001 budget request to this Congress. In FY 2001, the Census Bureau is requesting nearly $720 million of which $393 million is for Census 2000. Key Census 2000 activities must be accomplished in FY 2001, such as closing down the nationwide office network needed to ensure a complete enumeration of the population; delivering to the President state-level population counts required for apportionment; and processing, tabulating and disseminating data below the state-level for use in redistricting efforts, distributing Federal funds, and community planning.

The diminishing level of Census 2000 activities in FY 2001 allows the Census Bureau to focus its resources on other aspects of its mission to collect, process, and deliver timely, relevant, and cost-effective data about the economy and the American people. This is particularly important during times such as these when economic growth is high and the rate of social change increasing. We are requesting new funding to position ourselves to be responsive to the increasing requests from policy-makers for more timely and relevant demographic and economic information on important new or rapidly changing aspects of the Nation's people and economy.

Chairman Miller, I will look forward to briefing you, Chairman Rogers, and other Members of the appropriations subcommittee further on this in March. Mr. Chairman, I will answer any questions you may have now on the status and progress of Census 2000.

ATTACHMENT A

1. Total applicants includes only the number of qualified applicants for local census offices with Update/Leave in a region. It also includes those applicants that we plan to use for subsequent operations like nonresponse followup and special place/group quarters enumeration. Qualified applicants are individuals who have submitted an application, taken the census test (non-supervisory or supervisory), passed the background check, and provided all required employment-eligibility documentation.