Fernando E. Armstrong serves as Director of the Philadelphia Regional Census Center.

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

Delaware

District of Columbia: Washington, DC LCO

Maryland: Baltimore East LCO

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia North LCO; Philadelphia South LCO; Altoona LCO

New Jersey (Central and Southern)

Highlights of the Region include:

• Approximately 9,883,318 Housing Units
• 61,370 Square Miles
• 4 States, 106 Counties and the District of Columbia
• 3,171 Governmental Units
• 37 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
• 8 U.S. Senators
• 42 Local Census Offices

Additional items of interest include:

• Contains three challenging urban centers (Philadelphia, Baltimore and the District of Columbia)
• Pennsylvania has the second-highest number of elderly after Florida
• New Jersey ranked fourth in number of immigrants admitted to a state (1996)
• Delaware ranked 49^th in the amount of federal aid to state and local governments (1997)
• Maryland was ninth in the nation among the percentage of its population employed (1996)

Overview

Dates of Visits:
April 11, 2000
May 26, 2000
June 21, 2000
Mailback Response Rate
52%

NRFU Workload
57,434 housing units

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

Geographic Description
The Washington, D.C., East LCO was located at 800 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 92 tracts, of which 55 (59.78 percent) were HTE. Many of these tracts contain multi-unit and multi-family housing. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 118,765 housing units. The LCO is responsible for the entire District east of the Anacostia River.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
Washington, D.C. successfully raised the mail response rate from 56 percent in 1990 to 58 percent in 2000. The commitment to community outreach and implementation of a comprehensive NRFU program enabled the LCO to achieve a relatively high overall response.

Observations
The LCOM pointed enthusiastically to the positive effects of the Bureau's Partnership program, which emphasized "coalition building" through the development of a strong Complete Count Committee and shared responsibility with local agencies. The Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Employment Services, for example, supported the LCO's agenda by facilitating mass recruiting sessions targeting the District's residents.

With the support of the Bureau, community leaders and elected officials, the LCO dedicated much of its resources to ensuring an accurate count during NRFU. Blitz and paired enumeration strategies were implemented in high crime areas and in neighborhoods that have been overtaken by drug dealers. Detailed maps highlighting Hard-to-Enumerate tracts were on display at the office. Personal visits and repeated telephone calls were made to produce the highest possible response rate in the HTEs and throughout the LCO's jurisdiction.

The LCO observed round-the-clock work hours throughout NRFU. Efforts to assign bilingual staff in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods helped to produce a high number of successful interviews.

The Area Manager covering the DC area reported the 2000 Census was "more organized, more laid out, and procedures better written" than in the 1990 Census. According to LCO staff, however, ill-timed remarks from national political figures indicating that people need not complete all of the census questions may have negatively impacted the initial response rate among the District's residents.

The Board held numerous meetings with local leaders of the District, and hosted a public event on July 8 to discuss the impact of census numbers in Ward 8, a historically undercounted and therefore under-served area.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Washington, D.C. East LCO attributed much of its recruiting success to the government assistance waivers. The LCO was also strongly supported by its local CCC that united 250 local churches, community groups and organizations.

Observations
Recruiting efforts by the Washington, D.C. East office were commendable. The LCOM was particularly sensitive to the need to assemble a diverse workforce and targeted the LCO's recruiting and promotional efforts to specific neighborhoods and census tracts. During the April 11 visit, the LCOM reported, after initially bringing the issue to the attention of CMBC, that the government assistance waivers had made a "considerable difference" in the office's ability to encourage residents of the HTE neighborhoods to become enumerators. In fact, the office administered its job applicant test to almost 13,000 people and had more than twice the originally projected amount of qualified employees.

Elected officials and the District's Census 2000 "Power in Numbers" CCC were helpful in overall recruiting. Reportedly 95 percent of enumerators were placed in their own neighborhoods. Additionally, the CCC, comprised of 250 neighborhood, church, community, civic and business organizations, was reported to be essential in the development and implementation of the HTE Action Plan. The most effective strategy employed was blitz enumeration, especially near the Memorial Day weekend.

Within a few percentage points, the Census 2000 mailback response rate tracked the 1990 results, suggesting overall promotional efforts made little difference, as the LCOM asserted there had been no major demographic changes in the last ten years. Unlike many other LCOs, management reported enumerators submitted no falsified forms.

This office received a high level of oversight throughout all phases of Census 2000 operations. Congressional Board Member A. Mark Neuman participated during the April 11 Monitoring Board visit and Census Bureau Associate Director for Field Operations Marvin Raines participated in the June 21 visit. Chairman Dan Miller and ranking member Carolyn Maloney of the House Subcommittee on the Census observed homeless enumeration on March 29.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
April 7, 2000
May 25, 2000
June 26, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
51%

NRFU Workload
65,090 housing units

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

Geographic Description
The Baltimore East LCO was located on the first floor at 2525 Kirk Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 88 tracts in the LCO, of which 81 (92.04 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 126,855 housing units. The LCO was in the heart of urban Baltimore and was comprised primarily of African-American and Hispanic residents.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
Through strong organization, good management at the regional and local level and ongoing outreach efforts, the LCO was able to effectively complete NRFU ahead of schedule, finishing on June 23. These efforts were especially significant in light of the City of Baltimore's lower than expected response rate of 50 percent and a shortage of qualified workers.

Observations
The LCO's success can be explained, in large part, by the work and dedication of a strong LCOM, who was responsible for overseeing close to 800 people in the field and about 150 in-office personnel. An educator by training, the LCOM appeared driven by the civic aspect of the census and concern for the local community. The LCOM demonstrated a firm and disciplined working style, and conveyed unswerving commitment to Census Bureau procedures.

Census in the Schools was effective. The LCOM further noted that the program should become a permanent feature of the Baltimore City's school curriculum.

The LCO overcame a low mail back rate by keeping to a NRFU Action Plan that concentrated on Hard-to-Enumerate areas. Blitz and paired enumeration strategies were used in areas where security was a concern. Successful recruitment efforts in Latino neighborhoods led to the sufficient hire of bilingual enumerators who, in turn, generated a high rate of successful interviews within the Latino community.

Particularly impressive was the work of one enumerator whom Board staff observed. The enumerator attributed a high number of completed interviews to her persistence and Spanish fluency, as well as the three-day training program. During an observation of NRFU operations in the Highland town area of Baltimore, Board staff was particularly impressed with the efficiency and dedication of the enumerator.

While the LCO was blessed with talented and hard-working staff, the office initially had some problems with several employees who were thought to be falsifying census information or who simply weren't meeting basic work standards. In one week, during the early stages of NRFU, 127 workers were taken off the payroll for reasons relating to falsification or non-performance. The work carried out by these employees was redistributed in timely fashion. Welfare to Work employees were said to be among the hardest working and most diligent in the field. Furthermore, senior citizens received much praise from the LCOM for making a positive contribution to both the LCO's administrative and field operations departments.

Support from local elected officials and the Census Bureau's Regional Office played a large role in the overall success of the LCO. The LCOM specifically mentioned efforts by Maryland's Secretary of State and the Mayor of Baltimore in raising census awareness and making the LCO's job more manageable. The Board heard first-hand about census efforts in Baltimore during a regional summit it co-hosted with the Cities of Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Prince George's County in February 2000.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
Several factors observed in the Baltimore East LCO have caused concern for us, including rapid progress at the end that was out of line with previous performance output and staffing levels.

Observations
During the May 25 Monitoring Board visit, the LCOM described an ambitious, though artificially imposed, deadline of June 23 for the completion of NRFU.

We are concerned with the speedy progress during Final Closeout (the NRFU progress from 95 to 100 percent) and staffing at many levels. Final Closeout took only four days, far less than the move from 90 to 95 percent, which was estimated at 7 _ 10 days. This disparity could have potential quality control implications. The office faced 60 percent attrition among its enumerators, and following one memorable meeting, 127 employees in one district were purged. During the April 7 Monitoring Board visit, the office's recruiting progress had reached 54 percent, but according to internal Census Bureau recruiting progress reports, the LCOs should have reached 90 percent of their Qualified Recruiting Goal by April 1.

As a result of a managerial change in another LCO, Baltimore East's LCOM served concurrently as the Manager of the Baltimore West office from the end of May. In other words, there was only one manager for the two LCOs serving the largest city in Maryland, a city that had an undercount of at least 23,000 during the 1990 Census.

Despite repeated requests for their HTE Action Plan, the Bureau refused to provide it to CMBC; thus it could not be fully evaluated.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
May 31, 2000
June 22, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
68%

NRFU Workload
73,154 housing units

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

Geographic Description
The Altoona LCO was located on the first floor of the Keystone Financial Building, at 1311 12th Street, Altoona, Pennsylvania. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 121 tracts in the LCO, of which eight were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 209,024 housing units. The LCO encompassed nine counties in the heart of rural Pennsylvania and was linguistically homogenous. This LCO was also responsible for the enumeration of the Amish and Mennonite communities in Franklin County.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The initial response rate was higher than expected thus reducing the NRFU workload. This success allowed NRFU operations to be completed by June 10, ahead of the national deadline.

Observations
By February 2000, the office reached its recruiting goal, primarily due to the high unemployment in the area (reportedly 12-14 percent).

Eight of the 121 census tracts in the Altoona LCO jurisdiction were considered HTE. These tracts were primarily farmlands and presented a challenge because of the great distances between households. Furthermore, the process of map spotting assumes numbers and street names which are not always clearly marked on rural roads.

Another challenge to enumeration in this area was the large Amish community. A tight-knit community with limited contact with the U.S. government, most households received their census questionnaires via update/leave. Indigenous hiring proved pivotal in overcoming these rural and cultural challenges.

While recruiting and staffing never posed a problem in this area of relatively high unemployment, the office covered an agricultural area and contended with employees returning to farm work during the spring season. In anticipation of this, the recruiting staff targeted certain areas to remain fully staffed during NRFU. The targeting paid off as the office remained one of the top performers during NRFU, completing operations ahead of the national deadline. Moreover, a number of employees were dispatched to staff other LCOs.

The staff in this office was well organized and detail-oriented. Several employees worked on the 1990 census and thus had a good working knowledge of the census. It was suggested that for the next census, when employees are reassigned to neighboring LCO jurisdictions, their pay be adjusted commensurate with that particular locality.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
A number of issues bring attention to the Altoona LCO. The Census Bureau's P.O. Box non-delivery policy left many residents never receiving a census questionnaire. By the time NRFU began, field enumeration was in a weak position because of poor advanced planning. It was difficult for many local governments to take full advantage of LUCA, since most have part time employees.

Observations
The Census Bureau classified 85 percent of Franklin County as a MO/MB area. However, 90 percent of the county is lacking city style addresses, because most of it is farmland. Residents receive their mail through the use of a Post Office Box. As a result of the Bureau's policy of not delivering census forms to P.O. Boxes, many residents never received a questionnaire.

To complicate the matter, many residents are members of the Amish and Mennonite communities. The timeline for NRFU corresponds with the spring farming season for these groups. As a result, enumerators had difficulty getting access to a significant part of the population. The LCO management knew of the difficulties in Franklin County, and similar neighboring counties, for over a year before the census began, but there appeared to be little preparation to address these problems.

The LCO was challenged since many of the houses lacked addresses. One possible solution was to match the Bureau's address with the E-911 style address of the municipality. According to the LCOM, matching the Bureau's address to the E-911 style address became increasingly more complicated.

The quality of LUCA in these rural communities is also suspicious, because individuals who work on a voluntary basis within these local governments could not reasonably update the maps within the 30-day deadline imposed by the Census Bureau.

Lastly, the AMFO spent an inordinate amount of time trying to meet with FOSs and CLs. Because of the geography, he regularly drove 1,000 miles a week. Due to admonitions from the Philadelphia RCC to keep costs low, he minimized his travel. As a result supervision was reduced, which he commented compromised quality control.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
March 22, 2000
May 12, 2000
June 8, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
44%

NRFU Workload
82,483 housing units

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

Geographic Description
The Philadelphia North LCO was located on the first floor of the Traylor Building at 2701 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 78 tracts in the LCO, of which 76 (97.44 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 145,364 housing units. The LCO was in the heart of urban Philadelphia and was comprised primarily of African-American, Asian Americans and Hispanic residents.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The Philadelphia North jurisdiction registered a relatively low mail response rate (43 percent). Nevertheless, the LCO met the subsequent challenge of conducting a field enumeration in a diverse urban area that includes Hispanics, African Americans, Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Arabs. Support from the Regional Office and the involvement of local CCCs comprised of elected officials and community leaders were vital to the LCO's census effort.

Observations
The LCO developed an aggressive recruiting strategy that paid special attention to recruitment in minority-based neighborhoods. The LCO's recruiting campaign met its goal of attracting a number of minority applicants. Early deficiencies in Korean American staff were resolved promptly with the hire of an effective Korean American recruiter. Bilingual enumerators and facilitators proved to be very helpful at ensuring the success of the NRFU operation.

The LCOM noted with pride that this census was the best publicized census in history and that the heightened public awareness added to the success of NRFU operations. LCOMs with previous decennial experience in San Francisco, Portland, and San Antonio, also noted the positive effect of the national advertising campaign.

The Bureau's partnership program was successful in Philadelphia. Two Partnership specialists operated out of the Philadelphia North LCO, one whom was African American and the other Hispanic. While the specialists were reportedly effective in fulfilling their mission, the Area Manager noted that coordination and communication between the specialists and the LCOM would have been more productive had the specialists been assigned to the LCO earlier in the process. The Area Manager noted that CPUMS served as a useful resource in listing prominent community partners who actively promoted the census.

The LCOM gave the Bureau's Census in the Schools program high marks for enhancing census outreach efforts. Additionally, the local CCCs operating in the jurisdiction were instrumental in promoting census participation. In order to compensate for the low mail response, the CCCs disseminated census information to housing units throughout the LCO jurisdiction and at public centers such as supermarkets. The CCCs and their members also promoted the census at the well-attended Latin and Cambodian festivals.

The LCO functioned extremely well on a day-to-day basis due to strong leadership that emphasized ongoing communication between field and other LCO staff. As in other offices visited by the Board including Hialeah and Baltimore, concerns by some employees about the crime-ridden location of the office were addressed by the hiring of an armed guard.

Several locally elected officials provided the LCO with invaluable support at every phase of its operation. Some officials offered office space for the establishment of QACs. These QACs were often located in areas of the city known for heavy foot traffic.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Philadelphia North office was continually challenged in trying to conduct a census in an inner city. Key concerns include the high number of UAAs, as well as the termination of the AM and later the LCOM.

Observations
During the May 12 Monitoring Board visit, the LCOM reported that over 1,000 potential employees could not pass the background check. In addition, the office was functioning with less than 90 percent of its projected enumerators and over 20 percent of identified applicants failed to show up for enumerator training.

During the June 8 Monitoring Board visit, the LCOM reported 81 percent of the NRFU cases had been closed and 15,072 remained. This was behind the Philadelphia RCC's June 2 goal of 100 percent.

The high number of UAAs raised concerns as to the validity of Census 2000 data in this office's territory. The original mailout universe was approximately 140,000 and over 20,000 forms, many from ZIP code 19132, were returned to the LCO as UAA. These forms were accidentally sent out because of an oversight during the LUCA operation. These "households" should have been deleted from the MAF because they didn't exist anymore or had been confirmed as vacant.

There was no interface with the city's CCC and few working relationships with other state and city elected officials. In addition, this office suffered significant managerial turmoil. On or about May 9, the original AM was fired and on or about June 19, the original LCOM was also fired.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
April 11, 2000
May 24, 2000
June 20, 2000
Mailback Response Rate
51%

NRFU Workload
76,445 housing units

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

Geographic Description
The Philadelphia South LCO was located on the second floor of the Public Ledger Building at 150 South Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 80 tracts in the LCO, of which 46 (57.5 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 154,995 housing units. The LCO was located exclusively in urban Philadelphia and was comprised primarily of Italian-American, African-American and Asian American residents as well as a significant number of college-age students that attended the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and other institutions.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The Bureau remedied early management problems by replacing the LCOM in May, just after NRFU started. As a result, NRFU had a slow start but was able to accelerate as field staff became more confident in management and in their own assignments.

Observations
Over half of the office's 80 census tracts were considered HTE, according to the 1990 Planning Database. The City's CCC helped the Bureau work with public housing residents and minority neighborhoods to achieve success in these areas. Surprisingly, the HTE neighborhoods proved easier to enumerate than the upper-income high-rise apartment buildings in Center City. After the initial mail response rates for the city were totaled, the areas with higher NRFU—and lower mail response—workloads were in wealthier neighborhoods. Again with the City's CCC assistance, the Bureau was able to contact the managers of the dozen buildings that initially refused access to enumerators. Eventually, eight of the buildings fully cooperated with the census while two only gave population counts, one allowed enumerators to set up a table outside the building, and one would not cooperate at all.

Local media reported that some Center City high rise apartment dwellers refused to cooperate with enumerators of color and instead requested that the Bureau send only white enumerators. In order to achieve the best count and maintain confidentiality of the residents, the Bureau accommodated the request. This obstacle was only one of the many the Bureau faced in completing the count in Philadelphia.

Cities around the country encountered challenges gaining access to gated communities and secure apartment buildings. LCOs in Hialeah, Chicago, New Orleans, and Portland reported this as an unexpected challenge to enumeration.

Chinatown was another neighborhood that proved difficult for the LCO to count. Often residents were not home or feared cooperation with a government official. The LCO eased some fears by enumerating the neighborhood using large teams of Asian American enumerators. This method proved successful to completing the enumeration.

The office successfully recruited over 8,000 applicants and hired over 1,000 people to complete enumeration. The LCOM contended that by reducing lag-time between training and field assignment, enumerators were most likely to be available for work. The Manager also reported that front load hiring (i.e., hiring more than were necessary to complete the enumeration) was an essential practice. The City of Philadelphia was commended for the number of welfare-to-work recipients the LCOs were able to hire.

As mentioned, NRFU started slower in Philadelphia South than it did in some other offices we visited. Still, the office finished about 20 percent of its workload per week, as directed by Bureau headquarters. The LCO finished enumerating the 80,000+ housing unit NRFU workload by our second visit on June 20.

The City's CCC supported a phone bank, housed by the United Way, in late June to ensure Philadelphians were counted.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Philadelphia South LCO was challenged by difficulties in recruiting, a high number of UAAs, ineffective use of its local CCC and the termination of the AM and later the LCOM.

Observations
During the April 11 visit, we noted the office was far behind its qualified applicant goal. By April 1, the LCO should have had 90 percent of its qualified applicant goal in its files. This office had also seen significant managerial turmoil _ on or about May 9, both the original AM and the original LCOM were fired. During the May 24 Monitoring Board visit, the office was functioning with less than 95 percent of its projected enumerators and over 50 percent of identified applicants failed to show up for enumerator training. Additionally, the most recent Recruiting Status Report showed this office had reached only 76 percent and 100 percent was expected by April 18.

Over 21,000 forms were returned to the LCO as UAA. Of those, 8,000 were re-delivered by enumerators. The others could not be delivered because either they didn't exist anymore or had been confirmed as vacant.

A new manager completed the final 35 percent of its assigned NRFU workload between May 25 and June 13 and gained access to many high-rent apartment buildings where access had been difficult. These tasks were completed in about three weeks in a very challenging part of a major city. Concerns and questions were raised, by both the media and elected officials, as to the validity of Census 2000 data in this office's territory. For instance, on July 24, the Philadelphia Daily News ran an article entitled, "City Census Botched: Recount Ordered After We Find 18,000 Homes Missed." In this article, U.S. Representative Bob Brady (D-1^st) was quoted as saying the situation was "disgraceful."