Federal Manager's Daily Report

The official start of the next census is now only four years away and it is critical for the Census Bureau to carry out its vision for how it will conduct the headcount, including testing new technologies and techniques, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in a joint statement.

A plan unveiled last fall by the bureau could reduce the cost per household by almost 30 percent compared with the 2010 count—a potential saving of more than $5 billion—but will only work if Congress continues to provide the bureau the resources it needs and the bureau develops innovative technologies from now until 2020, it said.

The statement said the bureau must not repeat problems that arose in the 2010 census that included a handheld data collection project that ultimately had to be abandoned. The committee has primary jurisdiction over the census—one of the few governmental activities required by the Constitution—which is used for purposes including apportionment of seats in Congress and the distribution of federal grants and program funds.