NewConstruction_ 2019_2021_Supporting Statement_PartA_GeoApproved_11292018

Supporting Statement for

Office of Management and Budget Approval of

2020 Census New Construction Program

OMB Control No. 0607-XXX

Part A – Justification

Question 1. Necessity of the Information Collection

The U.S. Census Bureau is requesting a new collection and project-specific Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control Number to conduct the 2020 Census New Construction Program. The purpose of the New Construction Program is to obtain city-style addresses for newly built housing units, group quarters (GQs), and transitory locations in blocks where census questionnaires or mailing packages are delivered and households are expected to use a self-response mode to complete the census. The Census Bureau conducts the New Construction Program to assure the completeness and accuracy of the Census Bureau's address list. Participating governments have the opportunity to provide input to improve the Census Bureau's address list and to ensure accurate and complete enumeration of their communities.

The New Construction Program is a voluntary program. In April 2019, the Census Bureau will invite tribal, state, and local governments to designate a New Construction Program liaison to participate in the program. The Census Bureau will publish a list of governments eligible for participation in the New Construction Program in early 2019¹. Between September and October 2019, New Construction liaisons identify and submit to the Census Bureau addresses for housing units, GQs, and transitory locations for which construction is in progress during or after March 1, 2018 and the addresses were not submitted to the Census Bureau as part of another geographic program since March 2018. The Census Bureau will not accept street or boundary data.

The Census Bureau does not provide Title 13 protected materials to the participants of the New Construction Program. However, when participants submit address data for new housing to be included in the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau will protect the submitted data under Title 13, U.S.C. Section 9 which provides for the confidential treatment of census-related information, including individual address and structure coordinates.

Through the New Construction Program, the Census Bureau improves the accuracy and completeness of the address list used to conduct the 2020 Census by utilizing the expertise of tribal, state, and local governments. The Census Address List Improvement Act of 1994 (Public. Law 103-430) strengthened the Census Bureau's partnership capabilities with participating governments by expanding the methods the Census Bureau uses to collect address information from tribal, state, and local governments.

Question 2. Needs and Uses

The Census Bureau needs and uses the New Construction Program to:

1. Assure the completeness and accuracy of the Census Bureau’s address list.

2. Account for new housing units, GQs, and transitory locations for which construction is in progress during or after March 1, 2018 and completion is expected by Census Day,
   April 1, 2020.

3. Collect city-style addresses for newly built housing units in blocks where the Census Bureau plans to mail the 2020 Census questionnaires to housing units, GQs, and transitory locations. Households are expected to use a self-response mode to complete
   the census.

The Census Bureau will process all address files received from participants to update the
Census Bureau’s Master Address File (MAF). Files that are submitted in the proper format and contain addresses with complete geocoding data are compared against the Census Bureau's address list. The Census Bureau will add the addresses to the census address list, and mail decennial census forms to any participant-supplied addresses that were not already in the census address list. The census enumeration process will determine the final housing unit status and population for each unit.

Question 3. Use of Information Technology

The Census Bureau continually researches and develops new technology in the fields of GIS and Web services to lessen the burden of our partners. The Census Bureau provides the Geographic Update Partnership Software (GUPS) free of charge for all New Construction participants to participate digitally. GUPS is a specifically-designed boundary and feature update tool that guides partners through each step of the update process, and the software will format and package their updates for easy submission to the Census Bureau for processing.

The internet also plays a significant role in providing the public access to Census Bureau boundary data. GUPS along with its accompanying spatial data files, is available for download from the Census Bureau’s internet site. The Census Bureau also provides GUPS and materials to state participants on DVD.

Participating governments also provide their responses electronically. Participants are able to respond through email. In addition, a partner must send in their address updated list electronically through the Secure Web Incoming Module (SWIM).

Question 4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

The Census Bureau is the only agency that initiates, collects, and processes residential addresses, and geographic information such as the census tract and block numbers, or geographic coordinates for housing units, GQs, and transitory locations for construction that began or will begin in the year leading up to the census. The Census Address List Improvement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-430) strengthened the Census Bureau’s partnership capabilities with participating governments by expanding the methods the Census Bureau uses to collect address information from tribal, state, and local governments.

Question 5. Minimizing Burden

To reduce the burden on respondents, the Census Bureau provides GUPS, the Address List Template, and spatial files available online to participants.

Question 6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

The New Construction Program occurs once per decade in order to support the decennial census, the American Community Survey, and other Census Bureau programs and surveys. A less frequent collection would result in an incomplete residential address list, which would result in less relevant data for the 2020 Census. The New Construction Program helps the Census Bureau count everyone in order to provide decennial census population and housing data.

Question 7: Special Circumstances

Data collection for the New Construction Program follows the guidelines of OMB. There are no special circumstances for this data collection.

Question 8: Consultations Outside the Agency

The New Construction Program complements the 2020 Census Local Update of Census Addresses Operation (LUCA). Both programs are successive partnerships operations that allow participating governments the opportunity to provide input to improve the Census Bureau's address list and to ensure accurate and complete enumeration of their communities. The scope of work is somewhat similar. Hence, the Census Bureau continues to build partnerships and discuss the New Construction Program with LUCA participants including tribal, state, and local governments during periodic national and local meetings, conferences, and workshops. As stakeholders in the accuracy of the Census Bureau’s address data in the Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing database, partners are cooperative and willing to provide data for New Construction.

The following is a representative sample of individuals the Census Bureau collaborates with for LUCA and the New Construction Program.

State of North Carolina Bob Coats Governor’s Census Liaison 116 West Jones Street, Suite 5200 Raleigh, NC 27603 919-807-4781 bob.coats@osbm.nc.gov

New York, New York City Joseph Salvo Director, Population Division 120 Broadway New York, NY 10271 212-720-3434 jsalvo@planning.nyc.gov

Maricopa County, AZ Gary Bilotta GIS Manager 111 S Third Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85003 602-506-4959 gbilotta@risc.maricopa.gov

In addition, the public had the opportunity to review and submit comments on the New Construction Program during the 60-Day Notice of the Proposed Information Collection. The notice for public comment, titled “2020 Census New Construction Program,” was published in the Federal Register April 27, 2018 (Vol 83., No. 82, pp. 18502-18504) with a consideration period ending on June 26, 2018. During the consideration period, the Census Bureau received two comments.

The first one was unrelated to the New Construction Program. The second commentator expressed concerns about limiting new construction to submissions to addresses where construction began, or will begin, in the year leading up to the census. The commentator believes the limiting of newly constructed units to those built in a narrow time frame would have a detrimental impact on high-density localities. To account for the issue where construction takes longer than a year (for larger buildings), the Census Bureau made the following change to the original sentence in the 30-Day Proposed Information Collection FRN (pages 4 and 7):

• “Between June and August 2019, tribal, state, and local governments identify addresses for housing units, group quarters, and transitory locations for which construction is in progress during or after March 1, 2018 and completion is expected by Census Day, April 1, 2020."

Question 9. Paying Respondents

The Census Bureau does not pay respondents or provide them with gifts for responding to this survey.

Question 10. Assurance of Confidentiality

All information requested in this survey is public information of a non-sensitive nature and is available to any person requesting it from participating officials. The Census Bureau informs the respondent of the voluntary nature of this survey in the invitation email/letter. In addition, the Census Bureau provides the OMB approval number, expiration date, and reasons for data collection.

Question 11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

There are no questions of a sensitive nature in this survey.

Question 12. Estimate of Hour Burden

The 2020 Census New Construction Program based the estimated hour burden on the 2010 Census New Construction Program. The Census Bureau will invite about 32,000 governments to participate, however an estimate of 6,550 will complete the material review. The table below illustrates a disaggregation of the total estimated hour burden by stage of review.

Stage of Review	Estimated Number of Respondents	Estimated Time per Response	Total Estimated Hour Burden
Program Invitation	32,000	1 hour	32,000 hours
Participant Material Review	6,550	47 hours	307,850 hours
Total	-	-	339,850 hours

As shown in the table above, the estimate hour burden to conduct the New Construction is 339,850 hours.

Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: $0. (This is not the cost of respondents’ time, but the indirect costs respondents may incur for such things as purchases of specialized software or

hardware needed to report, or expenditures for accounting or records maintenance services required specifically by the collection).

Question 13. Estimate Cost Burden

Participants should not incur any cost other than staff time. The Census Bureau provides free and stand-alone software with shapefiles on DVD or for download from the Census Bureau’s website. No special hardware or accounting software or system is necessary to provide answers to this information collection.

The information requested is of the type and scope normally contained in department offices, city, and county government planning and tax assessing agencies. Therefore, respondents should not incur any start-up costs or system maintenance costs in responding. Further, purchasing of outside accounting or information collection services, if performed by the respondent, is part of usual and customary business practices and not specifically required for this information collection.

Question 14. Cost to Federal Government

The estimate to conduct the New Construction Program for FY 2019-2021 is approximately $15 million. This includes cost for the Census Bureau’s headquarters and the National Processing Center.

Question 15. Reason for Change in Burden

This is a new collection.

Question 16. Project Schedule for Each Survey Year

2020 Census New Construction Program Schedule
Period	Activity
Apr. - May 2019	Census Bureau emails/mails invitation package to about 32,000 eligible governments to participate in the New Construction Program.
June 14, 2019	Participants return the registration form to the Census Bureau by June 14, 2019.
Sept. 2019	Census Bureau mails out review materials to registered participants. Participants submit their updates within 45 calendar days of receiving materials.
Sept. 2019	Census Bureau conducts Webinar trainings.
Dec. 2019 – Jan. 2020	Census Bureau mails out closeout/thank you letter to participants and non-participants.

Question 17. Request to Not Display Expiration Date

The New Construction Program will display the expiration date on the Information Collection forms and on the Privacy Act Notice given to respondents.

Question 18. Exception to the Certification

There are no exceptions.

Appendix A

Documents Included in the 2020 Census New Construction OMB Package

Phase	ID	Title
Invitation Phase	NC-L-100	Highest Elected Official Letter.
	NC-E-100	Highest Elected Official Email.
	NC-L-110	Tribal Chair Letter.
	NC-E-110	Tribal Chair Email.
	NC-F-100	Registration Form (paper and online).
	NC-F-101	Flyer.
	NC-T-102	Address List Template.
Material Mail Out Phase	NC-L-200	Materials Enclosure Cover Letter for Digital Respondents.
	NC-L-220	Materials Enclosure Cover Letter for GUPS Respondents.
	NC-E-200	Materials Available Online Email.2
	NC-E-210	Follow-Up 20 Day Notice Email.
	NC-L-210	Follow-Up 20 Day Notice Letter.
	NC-E-230	SWIM Account Email.
	NC-E-240	SWIM Token Number.
	NC-G-100	Digital Respondent Guide (Table of Contents only as of now).
	NC-G-110	GUPS Respondent Guide (Table of Contents only as of now).
	NC-G-120	Digital Quick Start Guide.
	NC-G-130	GUPS Quick Start Guide.
	NC-R-140	Read-me.txt file for Digital Respondents.
	NC-R-150	Read-me.txt file GUPS Respondents.
Close Out Phase	NC-E-300	Thank You Letter Participants (to be submitted via email).
	NC-E-310	Closeout Letter Non-Participants (to be submitted via email).
	NC-L-300	Thank You Letter Participants (to be submitted via mail).
	NC-L-310	Closeout Letter Non-Participants (to be submitted via mail).

1 The Census Bureau will not publish the list by fall 2018 as previously communicated in the original 60 and 30 Day FRNs. The list will be available in early 2019.

2 The Census Bureau will submit the finalized GUPS and Digital Respondent Guides NC-G-100 and NC-G-110 to OMB through a Non-Substantive Change request by May 2019.

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