Census Bureau goes forward with plans to ditch PDAs

While it doesn't exactly come as a surprise given recent developments, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has now told a House subcommittee that the Census Bureau will in fact be ditching its much-ballyhooed PDAs in favor of paper and pencil for the 2010 census. According to the AP, that fairly drastic move comes as part of a package of changes that will ultimately add as much as $3 billion to the cost of the census, bringing the total cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 billion. Among other things, Gutierrez said that a "lack of effective communication with one of our key contractors" was one of the factors that "significantly contributed to the challenges." The handhelds will apparently still see some use during the census, however, although only for verifying street addresses using the PDA's GPS functionality. For its part, Harris Corp. (which had the contract to provide the PDAs) put the best spin on things, saying that it was "encouraged that automation and the adoption of new technology is moving forward, even if in a more narrowly focused fashion." Of course, it's still getting its $600 million+, so it can't really complain all that much.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[phanbouy @ Apr 3rd 2008 4:41PM]

ahhh.. our federal government. now Parody Proof (TM)

[Dr Buzz0 @ Apr 3rd 2008 4:47PM]

PDA's seem like they would be a natural way to do a task like this which is entry of lots of basic data on the fly. Too bad the government is too damn incompetent to make it work.

As for the contractor: Why exactly are they NOT paying the three billion dollars and the Government is?

There's generally only one thing worse than the government for getting things done and that's government contractors who are awarded a massive contract with almost no peneltites for not ever getting the work done. I can't say I'd blame them though. If someone handed me a billion dollars and said "This is the money for doing (insert big complicated task). but we don't actually care if you do it or not. Feel free to drag your feet for a few years and then just never get it done. Actually, if you do that you get some more money." That would be hard to pass up for anyone

[ken @ Apr 3rd 2008 4:48PM]

I wish I could just write off 3 billion dollars, would be nice

[kal326 @ Apr 3rd 2008 4:56PM]

Wow, I need to get some government contracts. What better way to completely and utter fail to deliver on the job, but still make millions.

[~~Tito~~ @ Apr 3rd 2008 4:59PM]

Are the people doing it really that ignorant to gadgets? Really? How stupid!!!

[Adrian @ Apr 3rd 2008 5:19PM]

Let's think about this. Did some quick math - $14B/ $300M residents = $46.66 (repeating, ofcourse) per person for the census. We pay that much to have every person counted.

Even more math: $14B/$117 (number of taxpayers in U.S.)= $119, which is the average price every taxpayer pays for the census. I could understand if this was to get us to Mars, introduce renewable energy, or even buy tanks, but to count people?!?

This makes the Big Dig look like a minor mistake.

[phanbouy @ Apr 3rd 2008 5:25PM]

someone's getting very very rich off our tax dollars. in other news, the sun rose in the east today.

[Magallanes @ Apr 3rd 2008 5:31PM]

"Ten thousand for a hammer...", so $45 x citizen is quite a cheap.

[ScOObyDoo @ Apr 3rd 2008 5:37PM]

Wasn't HTC the one making the PDA's? Why are they not mentioned in this?

[dillius @ Apr 3rd 2008 5:52PM]

Best question:

What was the miscommunication? And whose fault was it?

Considering the problems arose just last week and the government has already canceled on the contract, something tells me the census bureau people just couldn't figure out how to use the things.

[phanbouy @ Apr 3rd 2008 6:09PM]

or maybe it's all a big scam and everyone walks away with deeper pockets except us? nahh... I Trust Our Government

[Dan Davis @ Apr 3rd 2008 6:16PM]

Soooooo fire sale on old Harris Corp. PDA's?

[tojfs7931 @ Apr 3rd 2008 6:39PM]

Someone has to enter all that information on a computer... instant jobs.

[Richard @ Apr 3rd 2008 6:39PM]

What's your point? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? Have you ever been to the DMV, post office, or traffic court? It wouldn't matter if they gave these dumb a$$ gov't employees pen/paper, iphone, htc, or an abacus. They would still find a way to screw it up, never get fired, and make way to much money.

[Paul In SF @ Apr 3rd 2008 7:55PM]

Look at the bright side. This means that the devices will be hitting the government surplus sales shelves for pennies on the dollar a lot sooner than they would be otherwise.

[JohnnyB @ Apr 3rd 2008 7:56PM]

Ummm....

Why do we need to do a "Census" if every year everyone has to file a tax return, or have a social security number to essentially perform some sort of transaction?

Can't we add up all of the social security numbers and call it good?

If someone is "off the net" and doesn't have an SSD, they aren't using gov't services and probably aren't voting, so, don't count them ok?

Illegal Aliens...yeah, they are going to answer those census takers real truthfully.

Read the report on the 2000 Census and see the evaluation of the magnitude of the errors, that is some real comedy. The error was significantly bigger than the oft-reported, unverified claim of XX millions of illegals. And how did they find out they botched it so bad? They compared to previous tax records....

[Chris @ Apr 26th 2009 5:37PM]

Yeah, like they are even going to talk to the Census worker. The person flashes their badge and the illegals instantly say: "No hablo ingles."

[H4MM3R @ Apr 3rd 2008 8:32PM]

This is a software problem with window's mobile. The PDA's where good, the people in the field where ok too. However WM kept failing.

[BigD145 @ Apr 3rd 2008 9:01PM]

"Verifying street addresses"? Someone can read a number on a PDA, but not a sidewalk or mailbox or house? In my day *cough*2000*cough* we had paper maps. They did fine, assuming you could read.

[iofthestorm @ Apr 3rd 2008 9:25PM]

[citation needed]

[iofthestorm @ Apr 3rd 2008 9:26PM]

Meh, replies are broken. That was supposed to be a reply to H4MM3R.

[Shoeb Khan @ Apr 3rd 2008 11:04PM]

who made the recommendation fir these PDA's?

[Evan Brom @ Apr 4th 2008 1:47AM]

With a pretty high cost per person to do this why not offer people the $10. They would be much more motovated to self submit.

[thomas @ Apr 4th 2008 1:50AM]

I have been doing surveys with PDAs in countries like Haiti, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Somalia. In Angola with truck drivers using the devices! It's not about the technology!
And the fact that our gov has just dropped this much $ is unacceptable. Any lawyer-readers out there think there is a suit worth pursueing here???

[Craig @ Apr 4th 2008 7:16AM]

If they want to get some really useful data out of this $14B investment, they should consider strapping Google Street View cameras to all the census-takers' heads. All the fun we've had picking out photos of random guys coming out of porn shops would pale in comparison.

[rsatter @ Apr 4th 2008 12:03PM]

The technology is not the issue here. This is due to bad management.

The technology is no different than what was done in Brazil where they use Window Mobile powered devices to conduct Census activity. http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/icas/papers/P020071114297534694346.pdf

[all your base @ Apr 7th 2008 12:09PM]

Actually, it's a lot different. A Brazilian farming data count does not require Title XIII data protection requirements, all of which have to be integrated into the handheld and trained all the way down to all those 600,000 retirees expected to operate them.

[rsatter @ Apr 7th 2008 5:32PM]

So not true. While you might not think farm data is important most Census organizations affect government policy. The Brazilian Census security is a top priority for them and includes security on par with Title XIII.

[maria darr @ Apr 4th 2008 9:59PM]

I am a Census Bureau employee who is very dismayed at what is happening. This is a direct result of government being required to contract out (pork belly politics). The government has a lot of excellent, very talented people who understand intimately what is required to produce the tools necessary to conduct and capture a Census (at a much, much lower cost, I might add!). It takes many years to understand the complexities of a Census and data collection. Contractors are doomed to fail before they start. However, no one cares about that. The Census Bureau is repeatedly forced into using contractors yet there is nothing in place to hold these contractors accountable. In the meantime, very qualified and talented individuals have to sit back and watch the fiasco with their hands tied. What a shame. I, too, am a taxpayer.

[all your base @ Apr 7th 2008 9:42AM]

This is more a direct result of the Census Bureau not knowing how to write an RFP and a Statement of Work rather than contractor problems. You can blame contractors all you want, but a contractor will build what you ask them to build. You can't keep changing requirements during system design on a time-crunched program. Census has had many opportunities to blame contractors, but have stated that they themselves are at fault here.

[maria darr @ Apr 4th 2008 10:03PM]

The 2000 Census was a Lockheed Martin Contract. Go figure. Why would anyone be surprised at the margin of error when LM uses Intelligent Character Recognition Engines where a computer tries to read handwriting? God, even people have a hard time but are much better at reading crappy handwriting.

The reason you take a census is to determine the basics about statistical areas such as race, sex, age, etc. This is how the tax dollars are divided out, needs are identified for depressed areas, etc.

I understand the public's disgust at this huge waste of money. Government employees are taxpayers, too. While you always hear about the screwups, there are a lot more outstanding government employees at the Census Bureau than you would expect based on sterotypes.

[Gored Bushed @ Apr 7th 2008 8:13AM]

The dummies should have use linux not a proprietary company. If one linux company did not 'communicated' or went out of business another linux company could have taken over the software program or drivers.

[JohnnyB @ Apr 9th 2008 10:38PM]

The constitutional purpose for a Census is the apportionment of Congressional Districts. Any use beyond that, such as "how taxe dollars are divided out, needs are identified for depressed areas, etc." is beyond the scope and purpose of the Census. Again, judicious gleaning of data from existing sources would be much more efficient and timely than a 10-year Census. The very fact that its primary purpose is political should disqualify the data for any other applications.

I understand how the Census is being used; I contend that it is misuse.

[CENSUS WORKER @ Apr 7th 2009 1:07PM]

I am having fits trying to get this Harris unit to work. Windows mobile is the Yugo of all OS and the system
needs to get a "hard" reboot 10 times a day.

This is another Bush fiasco...this contract should have been given to Garmin as this Harris has GPS
in it that sometimes works other times cannot see the sat. even in with blue sky