Hill Calls Meeting with Census Leaders

The Hill has become so concerned that the Census Bureau's development of its handheld computers the bureau plans to use in the 2010 census is in such trouble that House and Senate staffers have called the bureau's top leaders to a special meeting on the Hill today.

Newly confirmed Census Bureau Director Stephen Murdock and Deputy Director Jay Waite will meet with staffers from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In 2001, Waite created a plan to use handheld computers to collect data from Americans who fail to send in their paper census forms.

The Hill's concern over the performance of the handled computers, which the bureau is developing under the Field Data Collection Automation program, was heightened after Government Executive posted an article about a Nov. 29, 2007, meeting between Waite and Mitre Corp. During the meeting, Mitre presented its analysis of the contract's progress. According to a talking points document obtained by Government Executive, Mitre characterized the contract as being in "serious trouble" and advised the bureau to immediately develop a contingency plan for using paper forms to collect census data in case the handhelds did not work as planned.