2010 high-tech census at 'high risk'
Source: Associated Press, March 26, 2008
Big worries for the nation's first high-tech census should have been obvious when the door-to-door headcounters couldn't figure out their fancy new handheld computers. Now, officials say, technology problems could add as much as $2 billion to the cost of the 2010 census and jeopardize the accuracy of the nation's most important survey.
A congressional agency says the census is at "high risk" of producing an expensive yet unreliable count, and lawmakers are planning hearings. ...... Census officials are being blamed for a poor job spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.
...... Harris Corp. was awarded a $596 million contract in March 2006 to supply the handheld computers and the operating system that supports them. The contract has since grown to $647 million, and could balloon by as much as $2 billion, according to a report this month by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.