The 2010 Census

So, the Census Bureau, is about a month away from its 2010 population count and it has already wasted millions of dollars paying temporary employees who never did the work and others who over billed for travel. This information was according to an audit obtained by The Associated Press, you can see the report at the bottom of this post.

On a positive note, their words not mine, federal investigators said it was appropriate for the Census Bureau to spend $133 million on its advertising campaign, including $2.5 million for Super Bowl spots that some Republicans derided as wasteful. Why are we advertising the Census???? It comes in the mail every 10 friggen years, you fill it out, mail it back, you can lie and put whatever number you want on the form....and my bet is there are plenty of areas that are doing just that.

But Commerce Department inspector general Todd Zinser makes clear the government is at risk of wasting millions of additional dollars without tighter spending controls on its 1 million temporary workers. He stated that "the costs were substantial."
Substantial??? The census estimate to do a national head count is sitting around a $15 billion price tag....more wasted money that we don't have!!

Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner of course had plenty of excuses about why the money has been waisted....got something to do with training costs and folks being let go without performing work. Buckner claims that the agency has made adjustments.....oh yeah, I'm buyin this!! He also stated that the bureau is "confident they have better estimates and cost controls in place." Oh, I'm fallin for this one...how about you????

Here are the audit findings:

_More than 10,000 census employees were paid more than $300 apiece to attend training for the massive address-canvassing effort, but they quit or were let go before they could perform any work. Cost: $3 million.

_Another 5,000 employees collected $300 for the same training but worked a single day or less. Cost $1.5 million.

_Twenty-three temporary census employees were paid for car mileage at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the number of hours they actually worked.

_Another 581 employees who spent the majority of their time driving instead of conducting field work also received full mileage reimbursements, which investigators called questionable.

_Other temporary employees claimed nearly 3.9 million miles driven at the mileage reimbursement rate of 58.5 cents per mile, even though the federal rate had been reduced to 55 cents as of January 2009. The result: excess payments of roughly $136,000.

Census regional offices that had mileage costs exceeding their planned budgets included Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City and Seattle.

The Super Bowl advertising — which included a 30-second spot in the third quarter, two 30-second pregame spots and on-air mentions — was panned by media critics as weak and ineffective, and it was criticized as wasteful by Republicans including Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But the inspector generals report said the advertising was consistent with government goals of boosting participation in the count.

So.....another totally efficient government run program.....are you surprised????