By Larry Jones
November 21, 2005

In a victory for state and local governments, House and Senate negotiators adopted the funding level approved by the House, $812.237 million, for the U.S. Census Bureau. Funding was contained in the Commerce, Science, Justice, State Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006. While the final funding level is lower than the $877 million requested by the President, it is significantly higher than the $727.4 million approved by the Senate in their version of the bill. The Conference and other census stakeholders were concerned about the lower funding level because it posed a threat to the Bureau’s plans for the 2010 census.

In an October 28 letter to Senate conferees, Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran urged negotiators to support no less than the $812 million approved in the House version of the bill last June. He explained that adopting the lower funding level would force the Bureau to suspend use of the American Community Survey. “Suspending it at this point will not only result in a huge loss but it will force the Census Bureau to revert back to using the long form in the 2010 census, a move that will cost American taxpayers an additional $1.3 billion,” said Cochran.

When fully implemented, the ACS will provide more accurate and up-to-date socio-economic data every year as opposed every 10 years as provided under the current long form. It will provide mayors, city planners and other leaders in both the public and private sectors a long awaited tool for monitoring change and emerging needs in local communities across the nation. “Clearly, the benefits of moving ahead with plans to implement the ACS outweigh the risk of reverting back to using the more costly traditional census design,” Cochran said.

The lower funding level could have also delayed implementation of a $500 million data processing contract awarded Lockheed Martin Corporation at the end of September. Under the contract, Lockheed is preparing to team up with IBM and a number of other corporations and be responsible for all systems, facilities, and staffing to process census responses reported on paper questionnaires, by telephone, and over the Internet.