Census Bureau Foul Up to Cost Taxpayers Additional $3 Billion
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Originally planned as the first almost completely automated census, the Census Bureau now reveals that the handheld computers purchased to help gather, then upload information about our nation’s people, will not completely do the job.
The reason? The handheld units are too complicated for the people who had been given the task. The units were purchased at a cost of $600 million, to outfit the census takers with a way to streamline the process. Perhaps more thought to the hire quality would have been in order. This is just another cost overrun by an administration less concerned with spending than a roomful of New York City housewives.
The total estimated cost of the 2010 census will be around $14 billion because nearly 600,000 temporary workers are being hired to take the census by hand, using paper and pencil.
So much for progress.
more here
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Tags: census, automation, temporary workers, cost overruns, $14b cost, 2010
2 Comments
Brad
April 4th, 2008
at 5:56pm
Stick with the pen & paper I say! At least digital pen & paper.
With an Anoto based digital pen & paper system, there is virtually no training issues to consider for the temporary census staff.
Have a look at this article for how a digital pen & paper solution could work for the census.
http://datateq.com.au/blog/2008/04/05/worlds-biggest-compute-job-done-by-pen-paper/
Cris DeRaud
April 6th, 2008
at 11:38pm
Purely mismanagement of government funds.