My Two Census

An anonymous Census Bureau official submitted the following to MyTwoCensus.com:

Update: To any former Census Bureau employees who may be interested in working on MyTwoCensus.com, I am aware that a misleading gag order was sent to many of you with your final paycheck that addressed the issues of social media and blogging. However, so long as you are not revealing Title 13 information, you are free to blog as you wish. Steve Jost of the Census Bureau commented on another Census worker’s blog, “…Upon reading it I went right to the Chief Information Officer to find if the Census Bureau has “shut down” a blog or website and he reported “none”. At it’s worst, our information technology protections might block Census staff from visiting websites identified has having malware or threats, but never shut down a site like yours. So, please keep on blogging.” So, follow his advice, and keep on blogging!

(Here’s what a 2010 Census gag order looks like)

To the readers of MyTwoCensus.com:

As the operations of the 2010 US Census wind down, the activities of MyTwoCensus.com will follow suit. As of this week, there will no longer be daily updates on this site, but when there is news, information, or investigations regarding the 2010 Census or the Census Bureau, you should continue to look here for information. If readers want to suggest future topics for me to write about or investigate, please contact me without hesitation.

(That said, if anyone out there wishes to take over this blog and update it daily or multiple times per week, I would be glad to hand over/share the reins! Please get in touch as I am happy to bring some fresh talent and watchful eyes aboard.)

This blog started from humble beginnings in San Francisco in early February 2009. In its first weeks, MyTwoCensus.com received great recognition from Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post and David Weir from BNet, which surely kept it chugging along.

The Census Bureau’s Public Information Office (Stephen Buckner in particular during those early days) fielded many questions from me and provided this fledgling news organization with invaluable information and clarifications.

From June 2009-June 2010, MyTwoCensus was funded by a generous grant from The Phillips Foundation. Despite critics of this blog decrying The Phillips Foundation as a “conservative” organization, it is 100% true that nobody other than I, Stephen Robert Morse, had any control over the editorial content of this blog (with the exception of some great interns who provided excellent commentary and news when I was on vacation). In fact, the Phillips Foundation’s hands-off approach is what led MyTwoCensus to experiment with different styles of reportage.

And, perhaps most of all, the site would not have been possible without the dedication and expertise of Evan Goldin, MyTwoCensus.com’s Chief Technology Officer, who has been constantly tweaking and improving this site. Any blogger would be lucky to have a guy like Evan as a dear friend and colleague.

As readers, you have been an extremely insightful bunch. You have directed me down the path to investigate many aspects of 2010 Census operations that would otherwise never have been covered or discussed by the media. I am proud to say that more than one million unique visitors have come to MyTwoCensus.com as a source of information since we started tracking analaytics.

The 2010 Census is not yet over. Some time before December 31, 2010, the results of the 2010 Census will be made public, which will initiate a major scramble for power. With redistricting, Congressional reapportionment, and gerrymandering arriving after the new year, there will surely be a wealth of information to gather and report. (If any readers are interested in collaborating on watchdog or reporting efforts surrounding these activities, please let me know.)

The MyTwoCensus Community forum (located on the upper right portion of the page) will remain open indefinitely for readers to share their comments and opinions.

Best regards,

Stephen Robert Morse

PS – To any media/non-profit/corporate organizations or individuals seeking comments or appearances related to MyTwoCensus.com or the 2010 Census, feel free to contact me.

Here’s an article.

The other day,  I wrote about Vangent, the company that received an $86 million contract from the Census Bureau to staff call/processing centers for the 2010 Census. As it turns out, the company has a very shady history. Some readers of this site might not even realize that they have been working for Vangent, which sub-contracted 2010 Census hiring to other companies such as Quest Staffing Services, Synergy Staffing Partners and Remedy Intelligent Staffing. To get a more clear picture about how Vangent runs their operations (which seems more like how things are run in China than the US), check out jobvent.com’s page for Vangent. Here’s a sample quote from the site:

“Let’s start out with the basics: Vangent is a call center & information processing company. They work on U.S. federal government contracts. This means the management and leaders at Vangent will stoop to any level to satisfy the government agency who gave them the contract. You as an employee are a robot; performing the work that was outsourced by the government. You are not a person and you have no rights outside of the most basic rights that are afforded to government contract employees. Vangent is the most impersonal company you will ever encounter.”

A significant amount of work, $86 million worth, for the 2010 Census went to an IT management firm called Vangent. In the company’s most recent earnings report, they wrote:

Vangent reported revenue from continuing operations of $214.8 million for the quarter ended July 3, 2010, an increase of $79.7 million or 59% compared to $135.1 million in the quarter ended June 27, 2009.  The increase in total revenue from continuing operations reflects an $83.0 million or 72% increase in revenue from the Government Group.  The increase is primarily attributable to $85.9 million in revenue from Vangent’s 2010 U.S. Census contract.

What have been your experiences working for Vangent? How have they managed this large contract? As this firm derived a major portion of their revenue from the 2010 Census, it’s important for us to look into their background. A search reveals that Chairman of the Board Robert B. McKeon has a shady past which is revealed in this Business Week article:

McKeon is the founder of Veritas Capital, a New York private-equity firm that invests in intelligence and defense contractors. Among the fund’s holdings: DynCorp International Inc. (DCP ) in Irving, Tex., whose name was tarnished in the late 1990s when some of its employees in Bosnia became embroiled in a sex trafficking scandal.

In the summer of 2005, another scandal-plagued military contractor caught McKeon’s eye. MZM Inc. was the focus of a federal investigation into whether its owner bribed California Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts providing technical and other support to intelligence agencies and the military. Sensing an opportunity, McKeon hired a former CIA general counsel to quiz Pentagon and intelligence officials about the viability of MZM’s business, which before the invasion of Iraq included helping with controversial analysis of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear capabilities. “We take on messy situations, and MZM was a mess,” says McKeon, whose top secret security clearance still doesn’t allow him to know all the details of what his companies do.

Not everyone is cheering. Critics argue that Athena’s apparent success rests on lucrative contracts landed under questionable circumstances. “Veritas is profiting from the spoils of congressional bribes,” says Keith Ashdown, vice-president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, in Washington.

What other skeletons are in the Vangent closet?

The 2010 Census has been marked by management goals that monitoring production standards. Every job from payroll keying, to hours and miles driven per case, is monitored. But imagine a job though where you are held to no production standard. Your job is simply to make sure other people are doing their jobs. You can stand over, hover and watch to make sure people are doing it, threaten or intimidate but you don’t have to know anything about procedures. You are reimbursed for mileage, travel costs and are paid anywhere from GS-07 to GS-12 per year, well above the salaries of clerks, crew leaders, office supervisors and sometimes even the AMFO and LCOM.

The sad part is actually there is a job like this at the Census and it is the job of the Regional Technician.

Before we begin dissing on Regional Technicians let’s take some comments that I have compiled from posts on MyTwoCensus that come from around the nation about them:

Former AMFO Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 9:53 am

The biggest waste of money spent in the 2010 Census are the Regional Technicians. They are supposed to support the LCO’s and provide whatever guidance and resources necessary to complete the task. They are really clueless on how the operations should be run. Our RT would come in and find the smallest thing wrong and and run right to the Area Manager. She would completely bypass the Local Manager. It didn’t matter that the LCO far exceeded all goals in every operation if one thing was out of line we were a bunch of failures. This person loved to talk down the neighboring offices as well as ours. The Census pays the RT’s for both their time and mileage. Added up the are paid quite handsomely for not knowing much. My RT told me that I was a Manager and wasn’t supposed to think. Try that in the Private sector. Anyone else out there have the same experience ?

Anonymous NE Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 4:23 pm

As for FORMER AMFO….I couldn’t agree more with regard to the RT’s. They actually ship these morons from other states, put them up in high priced apartments and houses and pay them well….and they know ZIP. As you say , they are quick to condemn the staff at the LCO’s, and operate with ZERO accountability.

Ex-IT Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 9:24 pm

Former AMFO’s RT sounds just like ours. Several managers and OOS’s found out the hard way that the RT sort of functioned like a Political Commissar. Everything the Area Manager knew about the LCO was through the RT’s filter. When anyone complained that the RT’s directives were contrary to Census manuals and rules, they were soon demoted or fired.

Anonymous NE Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:58 pm

EX-IT…..you are also correct about the RT’s. Here in NY, the Area Managers do NOTHING..the poor excuse is that they be in all places at all times, so therefore they dispatch the, and I quote…’eyes and ears of the Area Manager” to the LCO’s….the RT’s come with an agenda, and may I say their own “prejudices” to inflame, instigate, undercut etc the LCOM’s. There are RT’s here in the NY area that preach EEO and by the book, yet have been subjects of EEo complaints themselves, and sexual misconduct…..hmmmmm, the eyes and ears????? Interesting

Senseless Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:56 pm

RT’s are such a waste of time and money. They come in and try to change things and just make a bigger mess. Some of the RT’s do have experience but most have no clue. We had an RT that started out as a clerk and is now an RT. He was barely making it as a clerk.

The Regional Technician job is not well defined, and this is a major cause of problems. RTs have no supervisory rights but sometimes exercise them. They usually can’t be trusted because they are simply tattle tellers running straight to the area managers and telling them who should be fired. They are usually the ones who are ready to step in an take the helm of the assistant manager but sometimes add to the chaos because they don’t know anything. The Regional Technician is also next in line to succeed the Area Manager in case he/she should be incapacitated. Some regional technicians are career census employees. This makes the entire Census Bureau look bad because if they are like this during the decennial it shows you the incompetency that is running this agency the other eight years.

The regional technician job in summary is another bad decision on the part of the census. For the 2020 Census they should define a better role for the regional technician because frankly paying someone to do nothing and not firing them because they do nothing is simply unacceptable.

If anyone wants to vent please feel free to tell us your “best” Regional Technician (and I say this with all sarcasm) stories along with some names and locations.

Ex-workers in California count allege falsified data, inaccuracy.

Posted at 09:18 PM on Thursday, Aug. 05, 2010

By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators probing discrimination complaints filed by former California census workers also are looking into allegations that management pressure drove some workers to cut corners or even falsify data in the crucial population count.

In one case, a former census worker allegedly tallied residents of a migrant farmworkers’ camp on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side, even though the camp itself was abandoned because of the region’s irrigation water shortage.

“The goals had everything to do with speed, and nothing to do with accuracy,” said Craig Baltz, a former worker in one of the Census Bureau’s two Fresno offices. “Instead of slowing down to ensure accurate data, we sped up.”

Baltz added that in some difficult-to-reach areas, “enumerators had two choices — turn in accurate work [late] and get written up or terminated, or falsify data and keep working.”

Baltz worked for the census between October 2009 and July 2010.

Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/08/05/2031953/census-results-called-into-question.html#ixzz0w2VojsNA



For the past week, MyTwoCensus has received reports that the Census Bureau is undergoing some NEW unscheduled/unplanned operations. The question now is WHY? Was the previous data poor?

Here’s an e-mail that was recently sent to 2010 Census managers:

From:	FLD Decennial Data Collection
To:	FLD Regional Directors, FLD Deputy Regional Directors List, FLD ARCM, FLD 2010 Regional Offices List, TMO Decennial Operations Technical Support 2010/BOC@BOC, FLD Decennial Assistant Division Chiefs List, FLD Decennial Branch Chiefs
Cc:	mtrocki@oig.doc.gov, fmeny@oig.doc.gov, Fay F Nash/DMD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Barbara H Campbell/DSCMO/HQ/BOC@BOC, Barbara J Biebl/DACMO/HQ/BOC@BOC, Darlene L Monaco/DMD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Susanna J Winder/DMD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Shelley A Walker/DMD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Hilda S Dimmock/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Ellen W Cafarella/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Lucia J Chavez/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Rodney Peter De Peiza/DACMO/HQ/BOC@BOC, Annetta Clark Smith/DMD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Nancy E Kolkebeck/PHRCC/BOC@BOC, PHRCC Area Managers List@BOC, Patricia A Boykin/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Eric L Cheevers/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Julia A Shaw/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, FLD Decennial Data Collection@BOC, Irvin Vann/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Kimberly L Canada/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Craig D Ostrom/DACMO/HQ/BOC@BOC, kamro@ics-nett.com, Andrew G Knaster/DACMO/HQ/BOC@BOC, Sarah K Heimel/DSSD/HQ/BOC@BOC, Geoffrey I Jackson/DSSD/HQ/BOC@BOC, William H Johnson Jr/FLD/HQ/BOC@BOC
Date:	07/30/2010 02:11 PM
Subject:	2010 NRFU NRFU Residual Follow-up Ops Log – July 30, 2010
Sent by:	Hilda S Dimmock

---

ACTION:  July 30, 2010  NRFU Residual Follow-up Ops Log
Regional Census Centers should share the appropriate portions of information in this Ops Log with their LCOs

This is the first Ops Log related to the recently added NRFU Residual Follow-up Operation.  The operation universe, rules and procedures are in the final approval stage, but we are providing the following  field dates to aid in planning:

• 8/11 Scheduled release of PBOCS for NRFU RES for Assignment Prep
• 8/12 Begin Field enumeration
• 8/21 Begin Final Attempt for cases
• 8/24 End of field enumeration
• 8/25 All EQs MUST be shipped to the data capture centers

Highlights of the operations are as follows:

• Training will be similar to VDC in that we will provide a Job Aid for Enumerators, Crew Leaders/Field Operations Supervisors and NRFU Residual section for the Office Manual.
• We will provide information on the size of the universe by early next week.
• Assignment Preparation will very similar to NRFU VDC.
• Field staff active in NRFU VDC will be available in NRFU Res.
• Enumerators should be encouraged to get as many accurate interviews as possible during the short enumeration period based on the status of the address as of April 1, 2010.   What this means is that they should visit during the best time to catch the occupants at home and to continue to contact every address in their assignment before going back for the second or third attempt.
• There will be no added HU during the operation.
• There will be no RI attempts during the operation.
• The Operation will use Operation Code ’91′ and Task code ’091′ for payroll

——————————————————————————-
> Please reply directly to “FLD Decennial Data Collection”

Here’s a great article from the Wall Street Journal…Be careful, otherwise you might end up like William Rickenbacker:

By CARL BIALIK

Even in a mandatory census, there are conscientious objectors.

Completing a census form is required by law, but census takers haven’t been able to get any information from more than 500,000 U.S. households this year. While census evaders theoretically can be fined up to $5,000, in practice they are rarely penalized—none were in 2010 or in 2000—for fear of creating a public backlash.

Eddie Rickenbacker Papers, Auburn University Library Special CollectionsWilliam Rickenbacker was fined $100 for refusing to respond to a 1960 census questionnaire, making him one of the few Americans to ever face a penalty for noncompliance.

Instead, the Census Bureau combines threats of penalties with painstaking follow-up over the phone and in person, including interviews with neighbors of nonresponding households. That approach, backed by rapidly rising spending for advertising and census workers, yields near-complete coverage of the U.S. population.

That balancing act is costly, but it yields better statistics than a voluntary census, statisticians say. Calling a survey mandatory boosts participation significantly, they argue, even when enforcement is limited. That is why some data experts in Canada are assailing the government’s new plan to make many census questions there optional.

But as the 2010 U.S. decennial census winds down, a number of critics say even more reliable demographic data could be obtained at far less cost. They point to a system in some European countries that links personal identification numbers to government records on births, deaths, housing and other characteristics. That allows for an annual census rather than waiting every 10 years, and eliminates much of the error experts say arises when people self-report their information.

“The statistical systems in the Netherlands and Germany are much better than our statistical system, because they have a registration system,” said Kenneth Prewitt, the director of the Census Bureau during the 2000 census and now a professor of public affairs at Columbia University. (more…)