Page 24 - FCW, Jan/Feb 2018

Can CENSUS get it TOGETHER
Early last year, the decennial census — the government’s largest civil- ian undertaking — was agged as “high risk” by the Government Accountability O ce. The announcement was followed by operational changes at the bureau, contracting missteps, lagging IT systems readiness, a lawsuit led by the NAACP over withheld documents, the resigna- tion of the bureau’s director and a pitch
After a year of uncertainty and slipped deadlines, 2018 could make or break the Census Bureau’s constitutionally mandated population count
BY CHASE GUNTER
22 January/February 2018 FCW.COM
to Congress to appropriate more than $3 billion in additional funding.
In the rst three months of 2018, preparations for the constitutionally mandated population count need to gain momentum or Census risks a failed count. And the margin for error is shrinking rapidly.
“At some point, the rubber meets the road, and that point is now,” said Phil
Sparks, co-director of the Census Project watchdog group.
However, the headcount’s most press- ing issue — its budget — is out of the bureau’s hands.
Funding uncertainty
More than a month into 2018, very little on the budget front has been decided. In October 2017, Commerce
RASHEVSKYI VIACHESLAV/SHUTTERSTOCK/FCW STAFF