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Dress Rehearsal Site--Questions and Answers Columbia, South Carolina, Area |
Q: What is the purpose of a dress rehearsal?
A: The Census Bureau uses the dress rehearsal to provide for
operational testing of regional census center (RCC), local census
office (LCO), and data capture center (DCC) procedures and systems
planned for use in Census 2000, including the production of prototype
data products that comply with the requirements of Public Law 94-171
and provides an opportunity for others to comment on the range of
standard products and their formats. The dress rehearsal also may
include some procedures and systems that have not been tested
operationally in any prior field or processing activity.
Q: What area is included within the Columbia, SC, dress rehearsal site?
A: This site contains the city of Columbia in its entirety, including
a small portion in Lexington County; the entire Town of Irmo, which
is in Richland and Lexington Counties; and the following 11 contiguous
counties in north central South Carolina.
Chester Lee
Chesterfield Marlboro
Darlington Newberry
Fairfield Richland
Kershaw Union
Lancaster
Q: Why did the Census Bureau pick the Columbia, SC, area? What were
the standards/criteria?
A: The site selection criteria for the 1998 dress rehearsal focused
on the need to find populations associated with the differential undercount.
To select the sites, the Census Bureau did not focus on meeting a specific
threshold for each criterion, but instead used the criteria to identify those
sites that had the most appropriate combination of characteristics to provide
a good operational test. The site selected represents the size of typical
local census offices planned for Census 2000, which was necessary to provide
an understanding of the effectiveness of census operations. To ensure
adequate testing of the paid promotion program, we selected a site that
also was a primary media market.
Q: How did the Census Bureau decide on the criteria to select the dress
rehearsal suburban/rural site?
A: The site selection criteria for the 1998 dress rehearsal focused on
the need to find populations associated with the differential undercount
as well as other characteristics such as a primary media market and
housing growth that our procedures and systems must be able to handle
in Census 2000. To ensure adequate testing of our paid promotion
program, we only considered sites that were primary media markets. We
selected the site that we believe will provide a good operational test
of our procedures and systems.
Q: Is the site difficult enough to give us confidence in our methodology
for Census 2000?
A: The Census Bureau was concerned about conducting the 1998 dress
rehearsal in a site that was too easy. To avoid this situation, staff
ranked the potential sites in terms of expected difficulty in enumeration
and selected the site from that list.
Q: Why are these characteristics used in site selection.
A: These types of characteristics focus on a wide range of population and
living situations that the Census Bureau will encounter during
Census 2000.
Q: Did the Census Bureau consider the labor market in the site selection
process?
A: Based on our experience in the 1990 census and the 1995 Census Test,
and our selection process, the Census Bureau believes that a variety of
factors will present challenges for staffing the dress rehearsal
operations, regardless of the unemployment rate. The greatest challenge
with any pool of applicants is our ability to communicate the
requirements of the job clearly; namely, that the data collection
positions involve almost exclusively evening and weekend work, especially
in hard to enumerate areas.
Q: What was our hiring experience in the 1995 Census Test?
A: The Census Bureau experienced hiring difficulties in all three sites,
though each had a relatively high unemployment rate. These hiring
difficulties included high turnover, difficulty recruiting staff to
work in specific areas and during the times and days required, and
competition from other longer-term employment opportunities. Based
on this experience, unemployment rate does not seem to be a very good
indicator of hiring difficulty.
Q: How many people will the Census Bureau hire to conduct the dress
rehearsal in the Columbia site?
A: The Census Bureau anticipates peak staffing of about 380 temporary
workers. The duration of the jobs will vary from a few weeks to nine
months.
Q: Whom should people seeking employment contact?
A: The Census Bureau will not open local census offices in the dress
rehearsal sites until the Fall of 1997. Until that time, people
seeking employment may contact the Charlotte Regional Office, as
follows:
Bureau of the Census
901 Center Park Drive
Suite 106
Charlotte, North Carolina 28217-2935
Telephone: 704-344-6142
FAX: 704-344-6515
Q: Will the Census Bureau change sites if it does not receive the
funding required in Fiscal Years (FYs) 1997 and 1998 to cover the
cost of the planned dress rehearsal?
A: We are hopeful that the Congress will provide sufficient funding to
carry out the dress rehearsal as planned. In the event that our
funding level for FY 1997 or FY 1998 falls below the requested level,
we will assess how to reduce the cost of the dress rehearsal. We do
not have the option of switching sites because preparatory activities,
such as procurement of space for the local census offices and the
development of the master address file, require a long lead time. In a
worst-case scenario, we will drop one or more sites.
Q: What are the benefits to the localities? What data will they get?
A: In addition to the job opportunities created within these localities,
they will have the opportunity to observe first-hand the methodology
planned for Census 2000. This experience could be beneficial in
preparing their jurisdictions for the decennial census. The Census
Bureau also plans to provide some data tabulations to the jurisdictions
included in the dress rehearsal sites.
Q: What is the Census Bureau's history of tests and dress rehearsals?
A: As part of the planning for each decennial census, the Census Bureau
conducts a series of tests and dress rehearsals. The tests and dress
rehearsals conducted before the 1990 census and in preparation for
Census 2000 are outlined below.
1990 Census
1985 Test Censuses
- Tampa, FL
- Jersey City, NJ
1986 Test Censuses
- Central Los Angeles County Test Census - included
21 jurisdictions within Los Angeles County
- East Central Mississippi Test Census - covered a 7 county
area, including an American Indian reservation
1987 Test Census
- North Central North Dakota Test Census - covered a 10 county
area, including 2 American Indian reservations
1988 Dress Rehearsal
- St. Louis, MO
- East Central Missouri - covered a 14 county area
- Eastern Washington - covered an 8 county area, including
2 American Indian reservations
Census 2000
1995 Census Test
- Oakland, CA
- Paterson, NJ
- Northwest Louisiana - covered a 6 parish area
1996 Community Census
- Acoma Pueblo and Trust Lands, NM
- Fort Hall Reservation and Trust Lands, ID
- Chicago, IL (7 census tracts)
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