ADVOC - Census Funding 2006 | American Sociological Association

ACTION ALERT . . . 7/8/05, 7/29/05, 9/4/05, 10/13/05, 11/2/05, 11/4/05

U.S. Census Funding for FY 2006

11/4/05 No Action Needed (this update supersedes the Action Alerts below): News has trickled out from the House-Senate conference committee -- which yesterday considered the Census Bureau's Fiscal Year 2006 appropriations bill -- that conferees agreed to the House-passed funding level of roughly $812.2 million. This likely would provide enough money to allow the monthly household survey known as the American Community Survey to go forward.

No additional budget details are available at this time. Conferees are expected to file their joint report on November 7. The report should contain more detail on how (and if) the funds are broken down by account (Periodic Censuses and Programs, and Salaries and Expenses) and activity. It also might include directives, such as a request for a report on alternative ways to count prisoners in the census (as the House included in its report). The apparent conference figure is still $65 million below the President's budget request, so the Census Bureau must determine how it will carry out its plans within this budget. The full House and full Senate are expected to vote on the bill next week.

FY 2006 U.S. Census Funding Threatened
in Congressional Conference

Your Action Is Needed . . .

11/2/05 Action Alert: A House and Senate conference committee is scheduled to meet on Nov. 3 to iron out differences between two versions of the Fiscal Year 2006 funding bill that covers the Census Bureau, according to Capitol Hill sources. The tentative schedule calls for the U.S. House of Representatives to appoint members to the conference committee today; the U.S. Senate appointed its conferees in September (see below). Conferees would start meeting on November 3 and complete their negotiations in time to file a “conference report” in each chamber early next week. The House and Senate would then vote separately on the final bill, which cannot be amended, later in the week. If both chambers approve the conference bill, the measure will be sent to the President for his signature or veto.

The Appropriations panels involved in the conference are the House Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce and the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science. Traditionally, all members of those subcommittees serve as conferees.

The House allocated $65 million less for the Census Bureau than President Bush requested for Fiscal Year 2006 (FY06), while the Senate approved $150 million less than the President requested and $17 million less than the Fiscal Year 2005 funding level.

10/13/05 Action Alert: The Fiscal Year 2006 budget of the U.S. Census Bureau is in jeopardy. The United States Senate recenty passed its version of H.R. 2862, the FY 2006 Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill. The Senate bill recommends the Census Bureau be funded at $727.4 million, an amount that is approximately $85 million below the level of funding recommended by the House of Representatives and $17 million below the FY 2005 level.

Select members of the House and Senate will soon be meeting in a conference committee to negotiate a final version of H.R. 2862. If an amount close the Senate mark prevails in the final bill, the Bureau has said it will cancel or curtail several of its key programs. Possible actions include suspending the American Community Survey, cancelling the 2006 Census Field Tests, which were planning to test new innovations, including a dual Spanish-English form and replacement questionnaires to unresponsive households, and curtailing key demographic and economic statistical programs, including the Current Population Survey, Survey of Income and Program Participation, and international migration by state.

The members of the House and Senate who are participating in the conference committee are listed below. If one or more of your representatives are participating in the conference, and you are concerned about future funding for the Census Bureau, contact them with this message:

As a conferee on H.R. 2862, I urge you to work with your colleagues to agree to a figure equal to or greater than $812.237 million, the amount approved by the House of Representatives for the Census Bureau in Fiscal Year 2006. Failing to fund the Census Bureau at a level closer to the House mark in FY 2006 will jeopardize the future of the agency's major programs, including the American Community Survey, the 2006 Census Field Tests, and key economic and demographic surveys, and, ultimately, the quality and accuracy of the 2010 Census."

If your congressional representatives are not participating in the conference committee, please ask them to contact their colleagues who are participating in the conference committee to ask that they support funding the Census Bureau at a figure equal to or greater than $812.237 million, the amount approved by the House of Representatives in H.R. 2862, the Fiscal Year 2006 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill.

Contact Lee Herring, Director of ASA Public Affairs, if you have any questions. To find your representative, visit: http://www.house.gov/writerep/. To find your senators, visit: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Senate/House Conferees

Senator Richard Shelby (Chairman) (AL)
Senator Judd Gregg (NH)
Senator Ted Stevens (AK)
Senator Pete Domenici (NM)
Senator Mitch McConnell (KY)
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Senator Sam Brownback (KS)
Senator Christopher Bond (MO)
Senator Mikulski (Ranking Member) (MD)
Senator Daniel Inouye (HI)
Senator Patrick Leahy (VT)
Senator Herb Kohl (WI)
Senator Patty Murray (WA)
Senator Tom Harkin (IA)
Senator Byron Dorgan (ND)
Congressman Frank Wolf (Chairman) (VA)
Congressman Charles Taylor (NC)
Congressman Mark Steven Kirk (IL)
Congressman Virgil Goode (VA)
Congressman Ray LaHood (IL)
Congressman John Abney Culberson (TX)
Congressman Rodney Alexander (LA)
Congressman Alan Mollohan (WV)
Congressman Jose Serrano (NY)
Congressman Robert "Bud" Cramer, Jr. (AL)
Congressman Patrick Kennedy (RI)
Congressman Chaka Fattah (PA)

[End of 10/13/05 Action Alert]

7/8/05 Action Alert: ASA members need to be aware of the potential implications of the proposed Fiscal Year 2006 U.S. Census funding level being considered by the United States Senate beginning July 11. ASA members are encouraged to communicate concerns to their senators.

When Congress reconvened July 11, the Senate was scheduled to consider its version of the FY 2006 Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, which funds the U.S. Census Bureau. As of July 29, Senate action is still pending. Currently, the bill would allocate $727.4 million for the Census Bureau, approximately $85 million below the amount approved by the House of Representatives last month, $150 million below the Bush Administration's request, and less than the bureau received in FY 2005.

If the funding mark proposed by the Senate prevails, the Census Bureau has stated it would take the following actions:

Cut by 30 percent the sample size for Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey, thereby limiting the survey's ability to detect year-to-year change in the official poverty rate and other measures of well-being;
Eliminate several economic statistics programs, including the annual state and local government employee survey and the annual County Business Patterns program;
Abandon plans for several new statistical initiatives, including expanding measurements of service activities that are part of the GDP and instituting a national Longitudinal Employer/Household Dynamics Program;
Reduce the sample size for the Survey of Income and Program Participation by 15 percent and eliminate incentives that the Bureau says have boosted the response rate for low income households;
Scale back testing of content for the 2007 Economic Census;
Suspend the American Community Survey; and,
Cancel the 2006 census field tests planned for Travis County, Texas and the Cheyenne Indian Reservation in South Dakota, which will eliminate opportunities to study improved methods for enumerating American Indian reservations, as well as a dual language (English-Spanish) questionnaire, and a targeted second mailing to unresponsive households. The Bureau will not implement new methods in the 2010 census that are not dully tested in advance.

YOUR ACTION NEEDED:

If you support the work of the U.S. Census Bureau and are concerned about the effect of the Senate's proposed funding level, call or send an e-mail to your U.S. Senators (meaning those two senators who represent your state), and state the following:

"During the week of July 11, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to consider H.R. 2862, the Fiscal Year 2006 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. I am very concerned about the level of funding this bill provides the U.S. Census Bureau. Currently, the bill proposes funding the Bureau below last year's level and providing $150 million less than the Bush Administration's Fiscal Year 2006 request. If the recommended funding level holds, it would drastically under fund critical programs at the Bureau, including (choose from above list of examples or provide one important to you or your state). I urge the Senator to support any or all efforts to increase funding for the Census Bureau, including any floor amendments that might be offered during the upcoming debate."

(If you do not know who your U.S. Senators are, you may locate their contact information on the U.S. Senate home page.