Description
Statement of ObjectivesPayment Tools for Field Decennial Activities The U.S. Census Bureau has a requirement to provide payment tools and mechanisms in lieu of cash or paper checks issued through Treasury to support three Decennial events. Background The overarching goals of the 2010 Census are to improve the accuracy of population and housing inventory data, provide more timely data, reduce operational risks, and contain costs. The Census Bureau must plan for, hire, train, and pay a temporary workforce that is diverse and representative of the Nation's population to conduct the 2010 Census all within a specified time frame. The Decennial Census includes the entire United States, including extremely rural or remote areas, American Indian reservations with few banking facilities, and less-affluent urban neighborhoods underserved by the financial industry. The Census Bureau is committed to recruiting and hiring a local workforce from each community being enumerated even in the most remote areas, regardless of the challenges. Decennial census staff includes Census employees within Local Census Offices as well as field staff such as enumerators, crew leaders, Field Operations Supervisors, address listers, and other personnel. Enumerators and other field staff typically work from their homes and travel from residence-to-residence in their assignment area. They submit payroll information daily and are paid wages portal-to-portal and receive reimbursement for mileage and other expenses on a weekly basis. The majority of decennial appointments are temporary, lasting anywhere from four to eight weeks. Employees are constantly moving in and out of these temporary positions. A large number of the workforce is students, retirees, homemakers, or those just seeking to supplement their income. There are others who take a census job until they can secure permanent employment elsewhere. For many temporary Census field employees, a missing or delayed check creates a serious cash flow problem, and in many cases means that the employee will be unwilling or unable to continue performing his or her assignment. In remote areas like Alaska, the Bureau has found that the distance between residences and commercial banking establishments may exceed 300 miles and that many employees not have bank accounts or access to financial institutions. Because of the distance scale and terrain, employees in such areas may need to charter planes and boats or hire dog sleds to perform their assignments. Obtaining such services often requires immediate payment by cash or cash-like instruments, and in most cases there is no access to a bank or an automated teller machine to obtain cash. In past censuses employees sometimes endorsed paper checks to other persons. Sometimes these checks were endorsed ten times before reaching the bank for negotiation. In less-affluent urban neighborhoods, many employees do not have bank accounts and must pay high fees to cash paychecks at check-cashing establishments. Because employees look at the net amount that they clear, these fees can be a disincentive to taking a Census job. In the 2010 Census, employees will be paid weekly with the first paycheck issued within 11 days after the close of the weekly pay period. In addition to paying salaries, any approved out-of-pocket expenses incurred by employees will be reimbursed for official business such as mileage, bus fares, and telephone charges. A single payment will be issued for both salary and reimbursable expenses. During the 2000 Census, the Census Bureau hired more than 872,000 employees and paid nearly $1.8 billion nationwide. At the busiest time in the census, the Bureau successfully paid some 512,826 employees in a single week. Payments were issued using such instruments as Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), U.S. Treasury checks, and Convenience Checks. While 83% of employees participated in the EFT program, the remaining 17% were issued paper checks for various reasons. After the Census, the convenience check program was criticized for lack of control and accountability. Purpose The purpose of this statement is to obtain information about payment tools and mechanisms to support Census 2010 operations. The U.S. Census Bureau is seeking alternatives to cash and checks issued through the U.S. Treasury to pay its employees, and convenience checks to obtain needed services in certain specific situations. These situations include: 1. Payroll for Census employees without bank accounts ? Most Census employees are paid through ?direct deposit? electronic fund transfers. However, it would be a serious disincentive to require potential employees to obtain a bank account before they can be employed. Employees without bank accounts or who could not otherwise receive electronic fund transfers were paid with paper checks from the Treasury Department during the 2000 Decennial Census. It is especially common for employees collecting data in soup kitchens and shelters to lack both bank accounts and fixed addresses. In Census 2000, the Census Bureau delivered paper checks to either a named shelter or the local census office where employees could pick up the checks and cash them at local stores. 2. Advances for travel expenses during initial training ? Prospective employees attend a training session to learn data collection procedures. At the end of this session, trainees may request an advance of approximately $70 from future salary to cover travel expenses. During Census 2000, approximately 4,500 trainees received these payments through convenience checks. 3. Payments to cultural facilitators - Cultural facilitators perform a specific task for the Census Bureau but are not actually Census employees. For example, a cultural facilitator might assist an enumerator in interviews where that enumerator does not speak the same language as household members. During Census 2000, approximately 1,000 payments were made to cultural facilitators using convenience checks. 4. Payments to vendors who do not accept credit cards ? Occasionally the Census Bureau must purchase goods or services from vendors who cannot process credit card payments. Often the vendors are very small businesses or businesses located in very remote areas. Examples of the goods or services they provide include recruiting ads in community newspapers, translations of specific documents, or even dog sled rentals in rural Alaska. These vendors were paid by convenience checks during Census 2000. 5. Emergency salary replacements- When an enumerator reports not receiving a pay check, it is often necessary to provide emergency replacement funds to keep him or her working. During Census 2000, such emergency salary replacement payments were made by convenience check. Scope The payment tools for the Field Decennial activities effort encompasses the full range of information and services required to determine payment mechanisms to service such a diverse workforce and meet such varying needs while providing greater security and accountability than cash. The estimated number of temporary field employees is 1,500 employees during the 2008 Dress Rehearsal and 90,000 employees during the 2010 Decennial Census. Period of Performance The bulk of activity will be between April and September 2008 for the Dress Rehearsal, and from April to September 2010, for the Decennial. The 2008 Dress Rehearsal will test the final system selected for the 2010 Census. Place of Performance The 2010 Decennial Census takes place in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. It covers cities, suburbs, rural areas, Indian reservations, and other remote areas. Objectives To obtain financial services that include a payment mechanism, or a combination of payment mechanisms, that offer more security and accountability over paper checks. This payment mechanism or mechanisms must deliver payments reliably, accurately, and on a timely basis. To provide payment mechanisms for temporary Census staff that can be conveniently redeemed for cash or value. Comprehensive coverage of the country is a major concern, and solutions must explicitly provide for provision of these mechanisms in the harder-to-service areas and situations presented above. To minimize or eliminate the need for Census Bureau personnel to cancel, track, and reissue lost, stolen, or missing payments. To capture account classification code data as a by-product of the issuance of these payment tools, minimizing the need for Census administrative personnel to capture and enter such information. (Payroll accounting data for those without bank accounts will have been captured already.) Constraints The Census Bureau must have these services in place by January 1, 2007. A cost restraint has yet to be determined.