On Friday, April 8, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its seventh short-term spending measure, cutting $2 billion, enabling agencies to spend money through Friday, April 15, and narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. This temporary spending bill will enable legislators to iron out the final details of HR 1473, the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011, a bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011 (ending September 30, 2011). Details of HR 1473 are slowly being released, but the bill includes $38.5 billion in cuts below current funding levels and $78.5 billion in cuts below levels requested in the President’s FY2011 budget proposal. Individual statistical agency cuts (not including 0.2 percent across-the-board cuts for all non-defense related accounts) include:
Periodic Census (-$6.2 billion compared to FY2010 enacted budget due to the completion of the 2010 Census, -$93 million compared to FY2011 request)
National Agricultural Statistics Service (-$5 million compared to FY2010 enacted budget, -$8 million compared to FY2011 request)
Energy Information Administration (-$15 million compared to FY2010 enacted budget, -$34 million compared to FY2011 request)
Institute of Education Sciences (-$49 million compared to FY2010 enacted budget, -$129 million compared to FY2011 request)
Access the House Appropriations Committee list of highlighted reductions here and the full text of HR 1473 here.
Call for Newsletter Editors
APDU is seeking members who are interested in serving as guest editors for the newsletter or writing newsletter articles about a subject of expertise/ interest to them. Newsletter articles can span a wide variety of public data topics, including news about public data products or services, developments related to federal statistical policy, or data access/ dissemination issues. Contributors can be data users or representatives from data-producing agencies. The newsletter is an excellent conduit for communication between data users and producers and provides a vehicle for users to communicate issues of interest to them. It also allows producers to seek feedback from users or communicate new product developments.
Responsibilities of the guest editor include identifying 3-4 contributors to write articles for an upcoming edition of the newsletter and coordinating with CREC staff to review the content before publishing. Members interested in serving as a guest editor or contributing an article should notify Bob Scardamalia or Sean McNamara by Friday, April 22, 2011.
Census Director Groves Discusses Bureau’s Approach to Online Data Collection
In a recent blog post, Census Director Robert M. Groves discusses the Bureau’s approach to online data collection for surveys. Currently, 50 surveys have an online response option, which the Bureau hopes to increase to 60 in the near future. The Director also weighs the pros and cons of online data collection for varying survey types.
Census Bureau Makes 2010 Census Summary File 2 Iterations List Available for Comment
APDU maintains a list of open calls for comment on proposed federal data collections (http://www.apdu.org/advocacy.asp). We periodically alert APDU members to newly added calls for comment. Over the last several weeks, calls for comment on the following proposed data collections were published in the Federal Register (with due date):
Census Bureau
Automated Export System (May 11, 2011)
Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 2011 Re-engineered SIPP–Field Test (June 7, 2011)
Survey of Building and Zoning Permit Systems (June 10, 2011)
Institute of Education Sciences
Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study 2008/12 Field Test 2011 (May 13, 2011)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (June 6, 2011)
