Census Bureau’s books just don’t add up

The Census🐲 Bureau juggled its finances so much during the 2010 nationwide survey that its own auditors s💛ay they can’t tell how much the next big census will cost.

The Decennial Census of all Americans won’t take place until 2020. But the Census Bureau has begun planning, and Congress ha♍s allotted money for🐲 the project, although a reduced amount because of budget cuts.

The Decennial Census is the bureau’s biggest project, but it also constantly conducts regular surveys for the Department of Labor, the Commerce Department, the Centers for Disease Contro🌳l and Prevention and many other government and private organizations.

A report issued last May by the Department of Commerce’s Inspector General 𝐆(IG) — and never released to the public or, apparently, to Congress — said the Census Bureau’s books are a mess.

“The internal control weaknesses we observed involve significant deficiencies in the Decennial Prꦆogram’s method of recording salary costs,” said the report, titled “The Census Bureau Lacks Accurate and Informative Cost Data to Guide 2020 Census Research Thᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚrough a Constrained Budget Environment.”

The report, dated May 14, 2014, can only be found by digging deeply into the website of the Commerce Department🃏, which has authority over Census. On the congressional side, Census reports to the༺ House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

I asked the committee if it saw t❀his report but didn’t get a response. From the report itself, it seems the damninꦅg information was sent only to the Census director, John Thompson, and Mark Doms, undersecretary of economic affairs at Commerce, both of whom initialed it. All the others copied on the report were employees of Census or Commerce.

As my readers know, I’ve been conducting my own investigation of Census for ꧒more than a year. I’ve been looking into financial fraud as well as statistical fraud.

The statistical fraud is causing the economic data coming from Census to b♏e at odds with other numbers that agencies like the Federal Reserve use to make p𒉰olicy.

Financial fraud isn’t surprising, since the six regions of Census work autonomously, keep track of their own spending and have a habit of attacking anyo🍷ne who points out wrongdoing.

The Post has numerous requests in fꦍor Census emails and is also seeking a list of contracts it has signed where competitive bidding wasn’t required.

So far, Census h♑as turned over only heavily redacted documents, some of which revealed questionable incidents. One of those was the loss of 120 computers right before the last presidential election. Economic data could have be﷽en altered on those computers.

The newly discovered May 2014 report by the Inspecto🔜r General says that in one case💎, 10,320 hours paid to workers during the 2010 Census couldn’t be accounted for. Often, the IG said, Census employees would be working on one project, but their salaries would be billed to another.

This report dealt entirely with the 2010 Census. But I have to wonder: Why wouldn’t this be going on in Census’𝄹 day-to-day operations if that was the🎃 practice back then?

“At the very least, the findings described in this section introduce the risk that the [Cens♓us] Bureau’s accounts could be spent beyond the purposes set by Congress,” said the report.

The report a🍌lso said that transferring money bet꧒ween projects “increas[es] the risk that incorrect or even fraudulent charges could be recorded without detection.”

I asked Census if the Ma🔜y 21 report had been ꦇsent to Congress, but in typical fashion, got no answer.

This 🔥report came out within days of an investigation of data falsification prompted by this column. Congress then looked into data falsification, and that led to a series of reforms in the way data are collected.

Maybe Congress should look into Census’ tricky accounting🦹 before it’s too late — if it’s not already.