James F. Holmes serves as Director of the Atlanta Regional Census Center.

Following are the states located in the Atlanta Region and the Local Census Offices in those states reviewed by the Census Monitoring Board:

Alabama

Florida: Hialeah LCO; Tampa LCO

Georgia: Atlanta West LCO; Dalton LCO

Highlights of the Region include:

• Approximately 13,135,236 Housing Units
• 171,142 Square Miles
• 3 States, 293 Counties
• 5 American Indian Reservations
• 2 Tribal Trust Lands for Federally Recognized Tribes
• 1,664 Governmental Units
• 41 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
• 6 U.S. Senators
• 55 Local Census Offices

Additional items of interest include:

• The largest number of housing units among all regions
• Five of the top 20 fastest growing counties between 1990 - 1996
• Three of the top 10 fastest growing counties between 1990 - 1996 are in the Atlanta MSA
• Largest number of LCOs for Census 2000

Overview

Dates of Visits:

April 19, 2000
May 19, 2000
June 28, 2000
August 15, 2000

NRFU Workload
70,982 housing units

Mailback Response Rate 69%

LCO Type
Type B Office (entirely mailout/mailback)

Geographic Description
The Hialeah LCO was located in the Lago Plaza at 2750 West 68th Street, Hialeah, Florida. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 48 tracts, of which 47 (97.92 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 167,096 housing units. The Hialeah LCO covered a largely urban area of Dade County in south Florida. Its HTE areas included the African-American community of Opa-Locka and the gated community of Doral, among others. Its population was primarily Hispanic and African-American.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
During three visits to the Hialeah LCO, the Manager presented a positive picture of office operations to Board staff. However, the Atlanta RCC requested that the LCO re-count some areas beginning in early June. In mid-June, the Commerce Department's Inspector General (IG) began an investigation of the office. By late July, the Bureau addressed continued problems by conducting a complete re-enumeration.

Observations
At first glance, the LCO's performance seemed outstanding. Recruiting numbers and the NRFU completion rates were exceptional. The LCO recruited over 12,000 people and finished its NRFU workload within one month. The Manager told Board staff that he was so successful because he had front-loaded his hiring (i.e., hiring more than were necessary to complete the enumeration).

At the behest pf the Commerce Department's Inspector General (IG), the Atlanta RCC required the Hialeah LCO to re-count 11,000 cases. The IG's investigation of irregular enumeration procedures began in June and ended in August. The LCOM maintained that he did not know prior RCC permission was necessary before his office could attempt closeout procedures.

As late as the Board's third visit in late June, the LCOM maintained that his office was being scrutinized by outside oversight agencies because his office was the "best in the nation." In fact, shortly thereafter the Manager was placed on administrative leave because of suspicion he authorized shortcuts to complete the count in record time.

The Bureau further addressed ongoing problems by sending one of their best area managers to conduct a complete re-enumeration. The re-enumeration address list was updated from the original NRFU workload to include late mail-return adds and approximately 8,000 housing unit adds found during the first round of NRFU.

Re-enumeration of over 63,000 housing units began in the field on July 28, 2000. Over 700 of the best enumerators from the four other Miami-Dade area LCOs _ Miami South, Miami East, and Miami-Dade NE _ were assigned by crew leader district to match racial and ethnic identities of the neighborhoods with the enumerator. Enumerators from the Homestead office conducted quality assurance checks. Nearly 100 enumerators were hired within the LCO jurisdiction to address a need for more Spanish speakers. These new employees had not worked on any previous decennial operation. The Hialeah office used a common LCO technique by selecting particularly skilled enumerators to obtain data from difficult non-respondents.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary

Observations
Initially, things appeared to be operating smoothly at this LCO, and it was on track to being the most successful office in the South Florida, and possibly one of the best in the nation. The LCOM spoke of their accomplishments and innovative approaches to problem solving. He confidently predicted that Hialeah would finish "first and best" of all the LCO's. Early progress reports seemed to indicate Hialeah was on track to finish first, and was scheduled for early Closeout. In addition, a good relationship appeared to exist between the CCC and the LCO, and apparently the office actively made efforts to reach out to the community.

Eventually, however, questions arose regarding the success enjoyed by the LCOM and his management team. Reports began to surface from neighboring LCO's of questionable tactics being employed by the Hialeah enumerators, from shoddy work and cutting corners to outright falsification of data on questionnaires. This included stories of enumerators, at the encouragement of management, fabricating names and birth-dates in an effort to finish first. These reports eventually resulted in an investigation of the LCOM and his team by Department of Commerce's Inspector General (IG). Shortly thereafter, the LCOM, his managers, and most of the enumerators in this LCO were suspended.

Following the commencement of the IG's investigation and the Board's third visit, the Bureau brought in an AM from another state (and staff from headquarters) to supervise a total recount of the entire Hialeah LCO area, using resources from neighboring LCO's. Shortly after this recount began, the Board returned to Hialeah, and we were told by the new AM and several other Bureau officials that the recount was going well. None of the original enumerators hired by the Hialeah office were being used for the recount. The AM admitted that the Bureau had no contingency plan for a recount such as this and that they had to essentially devise a method for conducting the operation themselves. They also stated that they regretted the methods employed by the previous management, and denied any explicit or tacit endorsement by the Bureau of the activities in question. They also denied that the Bureau fostered a "finish quickly at all costs" environment among the managers.

We have serious concerns about what occurred in Hialeah. The actions of a few individuals set the tone for the entire office and promoted the haphazard approach and fraudulent activities that took place.

In mid-August, Board staff visited the re-enumeration process in Hialeah. Board staff saw first hand how the Bureau addressed the problems in Hialeah to ensure an accurate count. The bilingual crew leader whom Board staff accompanied in the Kendall area was competent and professional, and no respondent hostility or intense public resentment was encountered.

Finally, local community and political leaders cooperated with the Bureau to achieve a better count, but their optimism about the effort is understandably guarded. Bureau managers reported their surprise at the local community's exceptional cooperation considering the unusual circumstances.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
April 17, 2000
May 17, 2000
June 26, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
56%

NRFU Workload
56,298 housing units

LCO Types
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The Tampa LCO was located in the Park Tower at 400 North Tampa Street, Tampa, Florida. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 69 tracts, of which 38 (55.07 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 128,621 housing units. The Tampa LCO covered a primarily urban area of Hillsborough County. Its HTE areas included College Hill, Robles Park and "Suitcase City," the neighborhoods near the University of South Florida. Its diverse population included several unique minority communities, including a large Hispanic population.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The Tampa LCO ended on a positive note by significantly increasing and diversifying the applicant pool and completing NRFU operations on June 12, ahead of the national deadline. In the process, the office overcame a complete changeover in senior management, the lowest recruiting numbers in the region, and a rocky relationship with the county government.

Observations
With the changeover in management just before our first visit to the office, we were able to watch the LCO improve greatly over time. In April, recruiting was at one-third of its goal to select 900 enumerators. We anticipated that the Tampa office would borrow enumerators from another office to complete their workload.

Instead, by the second visit in May, the recruiting numbers rose significantly. A new and enthusiastic recruiting manager, a pay raise of $1 an hour and free parking for office clerks (a day of parking costs as much as one hour's pay) contributed to the improved applicant pool which contained several thousand people. The Manager even thought some of the employees might be sent to another office to help with their workload.

To reach more than 56,000 housing units during non-response follow-up, the office increased the number of FOS districts from four to six, shrinking the size of each district by a third. This change allowed the workload to be distributed evenly. Work was completed early in Suitcase City and Tampa Heights, two areas identified as HTE.

The local census office manager and the area manager based in Tampa made no secret that relations with the head of Hillsborough County's Complete Count Committee were strained. At our community forum in Tampa in June 1999, we saw early evidence of the hard work and community dedication to the census. We even helped facilitate an agreement between the school district and the CCC to work together promoting the census.

Local community residents offered the LCO excellent suggestions for improving the count in Hillsborough County, including several proposals that the office incorporated (such as working with the local housing authority and the local office of the Florida Jobs and Benefits). However, the local census office is required to conduct the census in accordance with national census standards, which meant that the LCO could not accommodate some community suggestions. If the Tampa office conducted the census differently, the ability to compare data with other LCOs, even within Florida, would have been compromised.

We believe the animosity between this office and the CCC resulted from communication problems between the two entities. The CCC started very early and in earnest to make suggestions on how to reduce the undercount. Unfortunately, the local census office was not able to convey the importance of working within the national guidelines. The result was that the LCO did its job, but some in the community indicated that their good suggestions went unheeded.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Tampa LCO struggled from the start. This LCO was plagued with resignations and terminations of management staff before and during NRFU. The LCO faced challenges in recruiting and retention of employees, resulting in questionable managerial decisions that may have rushed NRFU and adversely affected quality control. The fact that the relationship between the LCO and the CCC was strained at best did not help matters in this office. Eventually, however, it appears that the scrutiny given this LCO ultimately led to a favorable turnaround.

Observations
To say the office began unsteadily would be an understatement. The LCOM was replaced in December, then on March 2 came the firings of the LCOM and AMR for poor recruiting performance, followed by the April 17 resignations of the AMA and a FOS — all reported by local media.

During our April 17 visit, about a week before workers were to begin knocking on doors, the office had hired only 320 of 1,000 enumerators. According to the April 20 final national recruiting report, the office had tested only 81 percent of the employees it needed and had only 69 percent of its "qualified" applicants. By our May 17 visit, the office had revised its staffing projection to 800, but had hired only 575. The enumerator role was not the only unfilled position _ LCO-based office staff, including clerks, recruiting assistants and other support employees also resigned, often because they could not afford parking at the LCO's facility.

Without enough enumerators, the office's Area Manager indicated during our April 17 visit that she would "double up on crews" and "push her people hard" to ensure that NRFU was a success.

Regarding partnership activities, the relationship between the Bureau and the Tampa/ Hillsborough Consolidated Census Complete Count Committee (the local CCC) was strained. One CCC official regularly told the Monitoring Board the Bureau failed to reach out to minority communities, failed to utilize available media resources effectively and failed to involve community leaders in promoting the Census.

Despite facing the challenge of enumerating HTE areas like College Hill, Robles Park and an area known as "Suitcase City," the LCOM seemed unable to provide a definitive plan for counting these places in our April 17 or May 17 visits. Discussions about efforts to reach out to these communities were generalized and specific results were not provided.

We are concerned with the 60,000 forms returned to the Tampa and Lakeland (LCO #2932) offices as UAA reported during the April 17 visit. Of those 60,000, the two LCOs were able to redeliver 35,000; others were treated as NRFU cases. Although the majority came from the other office, 7,000 forms were reported as UAA in the Tampa LCO; half of them were redelivered. Reportedly, House Subcommittee on the Census staff was informed that 12,000 forms were considered UAA in Hillsborough County.

By the third visit on June 26, things appeared to have improved at this LCO. While the LCOM was not present (vacation), the AM reported that they were at or near 100 percent completion, and that close out procedures had begun. She also reported that morale in the office was now high, and that all of the problems associated with the prior management had been resolved.

The Tampa office received more oversight than other LCOs during early phases of Census 2000 operations. In addition to regular Monitoring Board visits, House Subcommittee on the Census staff interviewed Bureau employees in mid-April. House Subcommittee on the Census Chairman Dan Miller expressed his concerns in an April 19 letter to Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt, and requested "a resolution to this situation [turmoil and poor performance] immediately." In acknowledging Rep. Miller's request, the Bureau extended the deadline for filling out census forms from April 14 to April 23 so local officials could hold at least two scheduled events to count more people.

The Bureau of the Census should be prepared to have the results of Census 2000 in the Tampa office challenged upon its completion. By early May 2000, Hillsborough County officials were already preparing to contest the results, based on what one official described as flawed planning and execution of "every single component of the Census Bureau's efforts" (Tampa Tribune, May 9).

Overview

Dates of Visits:
March 22, 2000
May 19, 2000
June 23, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
54%

NRFU Workload
55,830 housing units

LCO Type
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The Atlanta West LCO was located in the MLK Federal Building, 77 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 63 tracts, of which 45 (71.43 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 110,214 housing units. The LCO is primarily responsible for the western part of Fulton County, an area that is approximately 70 percent black (including Haitian and Jamaican), 15 percent White, with the balance Hispanic and Korean. There are nine colleges and universities in the office's territory, including Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Clark, Morehouse and Spelman.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The office was able to meet its recruiting and staffing goals and finished NRFU in mid-June, one week ahead of the RCC created schedule. However, the office experienced unavoidable managerial turnover due to illness.

Observations
The office recruited 6,000 people, hiring approximately 3,000 over the course of operations. The office achieved considerable success with Welfare-to-Work employees and estimated that 25 percent of the staff were recruited from this initiative. Overall, managerial staff was pleased with the quality of work the office produced.

The jurisdiction's mail back response rate was just over 54 percent, slightly higher than the expected response rate. NRFU should have started without delay. However, two LCO managers resigned due to illness. This caused NRFU to start at a slower than expected rate. On the other hand, NRFU operations experienced a surge in production when the RCC sent new managers.

Furthermore, a concerted effort by community leaders to inform the area's census non-respondents of the importance of census participation enabled the office to finish NRFU operations a week ahead of deadline.

While the majority of local census operations take place in the field, problems with office facilities posed challenges. The phone system needed to be changed several times and when Board staff visited in late June, the office closed due to a water line break in the building.

The Board heard during a public hearing on September 11 of the State of Georgia's and Atlanta's outstanding census outreach. The LCO received much support from the local and statewide Complete Count Committee, the Secretary of State, and the Governor. The Governor recorded a census PSA and dedicated over $3 million to promote the census.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Atlanta West LCO was responsible for an area that is 70 percent African American, a traditionally hard-to-count population, and included nine colleges and universities. This LCO faced difficulties recruiting and a relatively low mailback response rate. Its HTE Action Plan was developed in conjunction with the other Atlanta LCO.

Observations
The Atlanta West and Atlanta East offices combined to develop the Bureau's HTE Action Plan to assist employees in enumerating these areas. Although the office faced many traditional challenges including areas that were considered hard-to-recruit, those with high crime rates and rural areas with a large migrant population, the LCOM considered the nine colleges and universities to be the largest concern. The Bureau's Special Places enumeration phase was responsible for these schools, which included Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Clark, Morehouse and Spellman.

Although the office appeared to have an effective HTE Action Plan, we were unable to review it. During the June 23 visit, the LCOM reported that she had received a phone call from the Atlanta RCC prohibiting release of the HTE Action Plan to the Monitoring Board.

After a series of managerial changes, a capable manager with previous decennial experience in both the Detroit and Atlanta RCCs led the Atlanta West office.

Although recruiting was difficult due to high employment in the area, the LCO was successful in meeting its hiring requirements. The office tested about 6,000 people for enumerator positions, of which about 4,300 qualified.

Even with a mailback response rate between 55 _ 58 percent and a NRFU workload of approximately 55,000, the office was able to complete its operations in a timely manner (by June 16), suggesting it had put together a targeted, comprehensive plan to count inner city residents.

There were 20,000 forms returned to Atlanta LCOs as UAA, 15,000 of which were in the Atlanta West LCO (reported during our March 22 visit).

The Partnership Specialist arranged outreach efforts including participation in a local home show, the census bus tour, Wal-Mart Day, a town meeting, as well as school and church events. Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell appeared in public service announcements and was very visible throughout the process including Census Sabbath, which took place on two consecutive Sundays in March. CMBC Co-Chairman Blackwell addressed Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Atlanta on March 26. He was joined by two Atlanta city council members and a representative of the Congress of National Black Churches.

During the first visit, Monitoring Board staff were informed that 11 QACs had been opened and staffed with LCO employees and some volunteers. The locations of the QACs were based on the HTE Action Plan and input from local city council members.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
March 23, 2000
May 18, 2000
June 22, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
61%

NRFU Workload
100,839 housing units

LCO Type
Type C Office (include mailout/mailback and update/leave enumeration areas)

Geographic Description
The Dalton LCO was located at 515 Benjamin Way, Dalton, Georgia. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 105 tracts, of which 10 (9.52 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 190,465 housing units. The LCO is responsible for 11-counties in the northwestern part of the state, primarily rural in nature and linguistically and ethnically homogenous. However, there is a growing Hispanic community in Dalton.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The LCOM and the Area Manager seemed highly competent and worked well together. The LCO was responsible for 11 counties which contain a majority white population. Whitefield County, however, has pockets of an agricultural seasonal Hispanic population. The LCO's greatest challenges were to enumerate this migrant community and fast growing housing developments in Catoosa and Bartow counties.

Observations
Managers met some of their enumeration challenges by hiring 17 Hispanics, including six bilingual recruiters. Field managers were especially proud of the attention they were able to generate from Hispanic media in Whitfield County. The office benefited from thorough outreach, strong support from a detail-oriented CCC, and close cooperation with three local Hispanic organizations. The LCO was able to send the nationally-sponsored census tour bus to area Catholic Churches and Wal-Marts.

The LCO had a slightly lower than expected mail response rate at 61 percent. The LCOM attributed this to a general belief among white residents that the census was too intrusive. The LCOM also mentioned that when national political leaders openly encouraged people not to answer those questions they considered too private, the challenge of completing NRFU in this office increased. Enumerators also had to contend with an Atlanta radio talk show host who reportedly discouraged people from trusting the government.

NRFU, which enumerated over 100,000 housing units, was a great success. The LCO finished these operations on June 10, ahead of the national deadline.

The office surpassed its recruiting goal by more than 40 percent despite a reportedly low level of unemployment. However, staff turnover posed a continuous recruiting challenge.

Clearly the demographics of the nation are changing. Smaller cities and towns like the ones contained in Dalton's LCO jurisdiction experienced an increased immigrant population since the 1990 Census. This LCO was able to identify pockets of recent immigrants and work with local community leaders to ensure their inclusion into the census count. The LCOM in Burlington, Vermont also mentioned the growth of new immigrant populations.

During a public hearing on September 11, 2000, Dalton and the State of Georgia told the Board of their outstanding census outreach. The Dalton LCO received much support from the statewide Complete Count Committee, the Secretary of State, and the Governor. The Governor recorded a census PSA and dedicated over $3 million to promote the census.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
Although the office had a small number of difficult census tracts (city of Rome, due to its population density, and Whitfield County, due to its increasing Hispanic population), outreach efforts appeared to be effective. The one strategy employed by the Dalton office was team enumeration, which was vital in completing the Close Out phase within 48 hours by using teams of four to five enumerators. The Bureau refused to provide a copy of the HTE Action Plan and we, therefore, cannot comment on its contribution to assist the Dalton LCO area in its outreach efforts to traditionally hard-to-enumerate communities.

Observations
The Dalton office appeared to conduct various phases of Census 2000 operations well during several visits by the Monitoring Board. The Dalton Whitfield Chamber of Commerce rallied for the census, providing staff support to the Complete Count Committee (CCC). The 13 subcommittees of the CCC, led by the leadership of community organizations like Centro Latino, Inc., reached out to those populations that, in large part, are responsible for the area's growth, yet are at most risk for being missed in the decennial census. If not for the influx of Hispanic workers in the 1990s, Georgia in general, and Dalton in particular, would have lost business including the carpet industry.

Recruiting efforts met with mixed results. Local companies and churches assisted the office in identifying bilingual enumerators, many of whom were hired. However, the office had substantial turnover rates (reported during our May 18 visit as 50 percent the first week, 25 percent the second week and 10 percent every week thereafter).

The office faced additional challenges from other surveys that took place nearly simultaneously. For instance, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) was conducted at the same time as the decennial operation. The LCOM reported this led to confusion among respondents.

Office staff judged quality control procedures as adequate. Reportedly, only one erroneous form was discovered (filled out by a teenager not yet 16 years old).

The LCOM of the Dalton office was knowledgeable, well organized and forthright in the various interviews conducted by the Monitoring Board. He had private sector managerial experience and maintained a good working relationship with his Area Manager and the community. The LCOM shared four specific suggestions for the 2010 Census:

1. The AMA needs to have the most training.

2. The AMA needs to be on board one year before any operations start. During that time, he/she could be working with local media, churches, community leaders, etc., building working relationships.

3. The Automation Technician needs to be a manager. According to the LCOM, this is one of the greatest assets in the office.