House Dems demand data on costs of census oversight

The debate over the use of statistical sampling passed through Congress long ago, but House Democrats are still asking the Government Reform Census Subcommittee to justify the costs of one of its oversight projects.

At issue is the panel's investigation of 16 census field offices where Census Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller, R-Fla., found irregularities in follow-up counting operations. At Miller's request, the Census Bureau collected and stored forms that came through the 16 offices.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who often sparred with Miller over the last two years as the subcommittee's ranking member, now wants to know what the price tag was.

"What was the cost to the bureau for retrieving and separating these forms? What was the cost to the bureau for storing these forms for the additional time beyond that originally planned?" Maloney queried in a recent letter to acting Census Director William Barron.

Asked whether it was worth holding onto the census forms, which are usually destroyed, Miller said: "We don't want to spend a lot of money unnecessarily. At the same time we have a job to do."

A Miller spokesman defended the request, and said the bureau never balked at the extra costs associated for storing the records, which include sensitive personal data that must be held secure.

"Whatever it was, it was never expressed as a problem to us," the Miller spokesman said, noting that $360 million appropriated in fiscal 2000 for the census was returned to the general treasury.

However, no one can seem to even agree on how much paper the bureau saved or how much it cost. Democrats said estimates at the time were well over 1 million pages at a cost of about $5 million; Republicans contend it was much less. More than four weeks of media inquiries to the bureau yielded polite return phone calls but no firm numbers.

Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., is planning to disband the census subpanel in December, Miller is retiring next year and Maloney no longer serves as ranking member.

In an interview before she requested the accounting, Maloney acknowledged the central issue--the use of sampling for redistricting - is moot, saying: "It's over. Republicans won the day [that] George Bush was elected."

But one Democratic aide insisted that her subsequent request still begs an important question: "Was it worth it? In the end we should find out how much this cost."

Shortly after Miller first raised questions last June, the bureau gave itself a clean bill of health, but the Commerce Department's inspector general continued looking into the matter.

Miller's spokesman said the panel's oversight was well justified. "We do feel we helped improve the count. There's no doubt about it," he said. The inspector general's report is expected out soon.