Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. to Scale Back High-Tech 2010 Census Plans

Anne Broache writes on the C|Net News Blog:

Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez plans to tell Congress on Thursday that the next constitutionally mandated count of the U.S. population will be taking place, once again, via old-fashioned pencil and paper, according to a report by National Journal's NextGov blog.

Census officials had been hoping to introduce handheld computers into the process of collecting and transmitting data, but numerous glitches along the way have stymied those plans.

That means, in part because of "recent increases in gas prices, postage, and printing" and the need to hire more Census workers, Congress will need to allocate as much as $3 billion in additional taxpayer dollars for the 2010 Census, Gutierrez was expected to tell a House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees such spending matters. That means the entire pricetag for the decennial process could climb as much as $14.5 billion.

posted by Fergie @ 4/03/2008 11:56:00 AM