Agenda - Council - 07/08/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Honorable Rudy Boschwitz United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Boschwitz: This is in reply to your communication of May 28 (file no. 0148440009) transmitting correspondence from your constituents concerning the 1980 census° Your constituents' concerns about the Local Review Program and its potential for contributing to a complete and accurate census are shared by many. Recog- nizing the importance of the program, .I have personally reviewed and approved the current plan for the Local Review Program which I consider to be an effective device for targeting problems. Local officials are being given an average of at least I month to get ready for the review. The Census Bureau transmitted technical materials and maps to enable local areas to prepare. Once the local review counts are made available to local officials, sometime in June for most areas, a formal period of 10 working days is provided for the review. Although we are expecting local areas to report all of the problems within the 2 weeks allowed, should additional serious problems'arise during the time that the Census Bureau and the local officials are resolving the problems reported initially, these later problems will be checked, to the maximum extent possible. The Census Bureau is allowing aboUt 4 weeks to resolve reported problems. A total of about 45 calendar days, therefore, is availab~e. to identify and resolve problems. We believe that for virtually all areas this is an adequate amount of time'for an effective local review to be conducted. It should also be noted that this is an extension over the period which would' have been available under the original plan for reviewing housing and population counts. Extending the local review period any further will require keeping the 409 temporary census offices open beyond the expected closing date. The scheduled closing date is the target date by~hich a typical office should close. A few will complete the job earlier and others considerably later. The vast majority, however, must close on or near the expected date in order for the Bureau'to complete subsequent activities'on schedule. The Census Bureau must microfilm and process'approximately 86 million census forms within a 4- to 5-month period. Counts for apPortionment purposes must be reported to the President on or before December 31, 1980, in accord- ance with title 13, United States Code, which requires the results to be reported within 9 months of Census Day, April 1. To accomplish this massive operation, specially designed equipment has been installed in three environ- mentally controlled census processing centers established sol ey for processing