Estimate of cost of 2020 census which does not conform best practices. Quality cost estimates can help an agency manage complex activities as well as help Congress Make funding decisions and provide sufficient oversight however, cost estimate only partially met characteristics of best practice and min malely met other best practices well documented incredible. Bureau has not public released update to 2015 cost estimate yet several events since then including changes requirements and procedures, the life cycle cost would be substantially higher than original estimate of 12. 5 billion. The bureaus preparation for 2020 have been further complicated by ongoing vacancies in the positions of census director and Deputy Director. Active leadership has since been named, turnover makes it difficult to ensure accountability and continuity as well as to mitigate risks and control costs over the long term. This concludes my prepared remarks, i will turn it over to my colleague who will discuss the risks facing census it efforts. Chairman, gowdy, thank you for testifying to testify for 2020 census. The technologies if appropriately deployed can improve our nations Response Rate and secure citizens data, this technology has not been effectively planned or managed and much work remains to deliver it. Three areas require congressional attention to associate with the technologies, they are schedule, security and cost growth. I will expand on each of these starting with schedule. The bureau needs to deliver 44 systems, some are new systems in infrastructure while other changes to existing systems. Clearly the internet response capability, mobile devices, centralized components are critical systems. Systems need to be ready for end test that started in august to ensure that they are integrated appropriately. The bureau has missed many milestones and currently four of the 43 have completed development and testing o. Of the remaining 29, 29 has delivered functionality, many of these systems are key delivery dates in early 2018 so that they can be included in the test. These systems include the internet response, mobile device enumeration application and the fraud detection system. Mobile device application has been running for some time and we have concerns of delivery of fraud detection system. Im not sure i would agree with the secretarys comment this morning that the systems are on schedule. Appendix lays out 43 delivery dates and we will be tracking closely for this committee. We are specially concerned that schedule pressure and late deliveries will result in compressed and inadequate testing turning to security, the bureau needs to continue diligence in area since its been the target of recent cyber attacks, the bureau needs to minimize threat of fishing, secure 400 mobile devices and ensure security of Cloud Services and properly configure all systems. To ensure that all systems are secure as possible, the bureau needs to assess security controls, fix known deficiencies and have the proper signoff by both chief financial and office to ensure that each system is authorize today operate. The process is critical since 33 of the 43 systems contain identifiable information. We have concerns of whether there will be ample time to complete Security Work given Delivery System and shortcuts taken to authorize prematurely. Right now all 43 systems need to be authorized, reauthorized or authorized. This is a point that i think its fair to say congressman homered quite well. Finally, we have concerns ant cost growth associated with these technologies and have had these concerns for sometime. The cap program is mentioned by secretary ross in the system has overrun and now costing about a billion dollars. Baseline it costs seem to be changing constantly, the latest from bureau is it costs were 3. 4 billion but the total did not include 1. 4 billion bringing total cost closer to 5, not 3 and a half. As mentioned by secretary ross, the new life cycle estimate includes this additional billion and a half that was previously unaccounted for. We will be tracking these costs closely because given the remaining work and past mismanagement. We remained concerned about cost growth in this area even with builtin contingencies. In conclusion, cost growth are Major Concerns that we will monitor for the congress. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding the hearing in oversight 2020. Good morning, chairman gowdy and ranking members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to testify about the bureaus 2020 census life cycle cost estimate. We all support the bureaus ultimate goal to produce a highquality census while minimizing costs. But over the last several years we produced a number of report that is have found weaknesses in how the bureau allocates costs, collects cost data and estimates commodities for the 2020 census. My testimony today provides Additional Details about limitations. First, we found that the bureaus 2020 census life cycle cost estimate cannot be validated. Second, much of our work throughout the decade reveals cost overruns, unaccounted for costs and decreased cost avoidance. To the first point, the bureaus estimate is auditable. It takes into account more than 100 inputs but when we try to verify accuracy during 2014 census test there was no supporting documentation. Additionally we have evaluated the review portion of the inoffice operation and found that the estimate was derived from undocumented verbal conversations. The lack of documentation prevented us from auditing the bureau reported to stakeholders. Similarly we identified three instances where the Bureau Census test fail today keep cost data, both 2014 census test and the 2015 address validation test intend today collect cost data in the field but it didnt. Finally, during the 2015 census test we found that the bureau could not differentiate between the cost performing enumeration versus administrative activities. Therefore it cannot determine whether enumeration methods were more effective and more efficient than it was achieved by reducing administrative burdens. We found that the bureau reported costs basted on predetermined budget allocations instead of hours worked. In addition, we found multiple instances where contractor costs with were not charged to accountability. It prevents bureau from making informed decisions. Second, we are concerned about costover runs unaccounted for cost and, for example, the bureau initially predicted spending 666 million for subcap program and now 965 and now based on what the the secretary said, itll be higher. Also found substantial overruns. The bureau estimated that spending for inoffice canvassing 44 million between fy16 and 19. Finally, our valuation of evaluation 2017 costs, and we found operational control system allowed to make more contact attempts than the cost estimate accounted for. So the expectation was they would go up to six times and we found them going many, many times. We are also concerned about increased unresolved rate as reserved in the test potential need to expand Additional Resources that are not accounted for in the bureaus cost estimate. In conclusion, we applaud the Census Bureau for undertaking several major initiatives to modernize operations. We recognize that not all of the innovations will perform as expected in some of 2020 cost savings may not materialize, however, stakeholders have confidence in cost estimates and must count by documenting and tracking all project costs correctly. Im encouraged by recent efforts to improve the life cycle cost estimate. The bureau started linking documentation to the variables in estimate and as we have just heard the secretarys task force worked closely with the bureau to improve that estimate. We are looking forward to reviewing that final product. So thank you very much for inviting me and im pleased to answer any questions. Thank you. Chairman gowdy and cummings, deeply engaged in the last several cycles, the leadership shares Cost Effective 2020 census and participation in the census, however, to uphold constitutional duty and ensure accurate and fully inclusive count. Congress must allocate resources to count historically under counted communities as well as easier counted communities. We are please today submit for e record two reports from the Leadership Conference in addressing both opportunities and the risks posed by the use of technology and of administrative records in the 2020 census. Per the constitution, the overarching goal is fair and accurate enumeration of all People Living in the United States on census day and the goal of a accept census thats equally successful in all communities is really nonnegotiable. These arent republican goals or democratic goals, they are shared american goals and achieving them will be key to our representative system of government. But insufficient, uncertain and frequently late annual funding has delayed derailed important census, most at risk are operations that are specifically design today enumerate historically heard account communities. Census bureau needs to study ramp up, deployment of it architecture and feel infrastructure and development of a Massive Communications campaign thats going to encourage people to participate and therefore at the back end help keep costs in check. We support the proposal in congresswomans bill, i wont go through details of that because you have that before you. Census has political connell consequences but the conduct of census must be strictly nonpartisan and strive to achieve equally accurate count in all communities. Unfortunately, even with careful plans we may be looking at an environment that could yield significant underaccount in poor communities, rural areas, communities that are recovering from natural disaster, communities of color as well as under counts of young children, immigrants, deep concerns about cybersecurity and the security of their information as well as in Rural Communities where the Digital Divide is particularly pronounced. There are hard account communities in every state and hard account populations in communities of all sizes from large urban areas to smaller cities to rural and remote communities including American Indian tribal lands and reservations and key point to note for both members here, nearly 10 of census track in South Carolina are hard to count percents uis bureau and 27 of baltimores population live in hard account census tracks. Regrettably we fear that the strict budget add to barriers, the Census Bureau is going to attempt but hamper by smaller fingerprint on the field. As you know when your veterans, advocates, businesses large and small, indeed all of us in the United States has to live with the results of it for the next ten years. Leadership conference and member organizations look forward to working with all of you to ensure Cost Effective, secure and above all, accurate and inclusive census in every single one of our nations communities, thank you. I want to thank all of you for opening statements. Also thank you for doing it in less than five minutes. I hope you consider running some time. Mr. Cummings, my friend from maryland. Certain population groups have historically been underaccounted in census specifically minorities such as african americans, hispanics and American Indians on reservations are counted at rates much lower than others. Ms. Gupta, why arent the groups accounted . One particular concern is mistrust of the government and whether communities will be whether their information will be safe and not used for enforcement purposes or and the like particularly among immigrant communities, but theres also a real concern around the Digital Divide and what that might do with and i would say even with more acute in Rural Communities as well as, you know, real concerns around cybersecurity and whether their information is going to be breached and the like but a lot of the harder to count communities, communities of colors, theres a lot of mobility in these communities, they they need to be trusted partners in the field from the census, whether its through organizations like the ones that make up the Leadership Conference or through partnerships with the Census Bureau to have messengers that are explaining the purpose of the census, why its important to be accounted and thats why the Partnership Program and the Communications Aspects to have census need to be adequately funded because without that, theres no chance of getting accurate count and that will ultimately fail the entire census and the country. One thing that secretary ross said to chairman and i the other day is that the cost of labor, he thinks has to be up, because you have to get a certain kind of person what you just talked about, and to get i was trying as you were talking, i was trying to figure out how do you penetrate that . How do you pass that problem because if people are not trusting of government, if they are worried about immigration issues, maybe not for themselves but for family members and some people they dont even know what the census is. All they know is that the government is knocking on their door and any time the government is knocking on their door they assume its something bad. I know because i lived in a neighborhood like that. How do you pass that . I really think its critical that the census have, the bureau have the infrastructure around the Communications Machinery and the Partnership Program and we were encouraged i was encouraged today when i heard the secretary talk about projected Communications Budget of 500 million but its important to ensure that theres enough money to actually promote census participation in our many Diverse Communities and to address some of the unprecedented challenge that is the 2020 census is going to be facing around as i said mistrust of government, cybersecurity fears, fears of federal Government Agencies and i think its deeply important that the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau consult closely with stakeholders who know these communities well who are in these communities who can be trusted marriages messengers and the value to be counted. Thats the only way i think that we are going to be able to ensure that theres a fair and accurate count and, of course, theres already deep concerns about the canceled testing and the like that could have other implications for the accuracy of the census in the next in 2020. Talking about the canceled testing. I understand that one test the bureau canceled in 2017 due to insufficient funds was to be conducted in tribal land, the standing rock, considering that native americans were the most unaccounted group in the 2010 census, this is very significant what are the implications of canceling this and other tests particularly in rural areas in American Indian reservations . Well, theres a statistic that we have 87 of the hardest account counties were Rural Counties and given that this is the first hightech census, i think theres a lot lot of questions, questions about cybersecurity, about whether technology is going to work, we want a modernize census, you have to be able to test it and testing it in Rural Communities as well as hard to count communities its important to get it done in 2020 and the fact that they canceled because of insufficient funding three out of four test runs, its of great concern and it will hamper this lack of preparation, you know, could very hamper the accuracy and fairness of the census count in 2020. I have one last question. The alleged cost savings penny wise but found foolish, can you try to explain that to us . Sure, the most costeffective way to count people is when they fill out the questionnaire thats either mailed to them or when they selfrespond via the internet. Every time and if they dont selfrespond through either of those methods then the Census Bureau has to send out enumerators to knock on their doors and as many as six times and so you can see how costs add up very quickly. Both in terms of the time that the enumerators are paid for, the wage that is they earn as well as mileage that they are reimbursed. Most costeffective way to conduct census is to get up and increase initial count. Gentleman yields back. I really am struggling think of something that you see that far in advance thats coming, so not to ask this in a too sophisticated way, how the hell did we get there if we know its coming, how do you get on a critical watch list . The thing thats frustrating is the same thing happened in 2010 and we were involved in 2010, thats when we canceled the hamheld project. The Committee Held multiple hearings. The interesting comment that secretary ross talked about 80 of the money is going from beyond 2018. From an it perspective, that should not be the case. We should start early, plan more appropriately, get the right contracts in place and deliver. What happens with the historically is going to happen again, can we get this done late and secure, yes, you know what its going to be, its going to be a higher cost. You pay a premium for doing everything late. I would have Major Concerns about the 15 point 6 and still hitting that even with the 10 when you look at it management of this. The thing thats good is having the Commerce Department govern in oversight. I think that will help but we still havent changed basic m