Census comes in $1.6 billion under budget

The U.S. Census cost $1.6 billion less than expected primarily because of a high response rate from Americans, the Commerce Department announced Tuesday. 

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said the Census came in 22 percent under budget primarily because contingency funding set aside for disasters or major operational failures was not used and because the high level of response and workforce productivity beat expectations.

"Over the last 17 months, we have worked tirelessly to ensure American tax dollars were being spent wisely," Locke said today in a statement.

The response rate was 72 percent, and field workers visited 47 million homes and completed their work faster than expected, Locke said. 

At least one lawmaker, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ripped the report, calling it "smoke-and-mirrors budget gimmickry that the American people have come to expect from the federal government."

"It is ironic that an agency in existence to do simple arithmetic would try to peddle such incomplete and deceptive figures to cover up for its waste of an estimated $3 billion of taxpayers’ money," he said. "Only in Washington could someone try to spin such an embarrassing budget-buster into a triumph of thrift."

Issa argued that the cost of the Census ballooned from $11.3 billion to more than $16 billion, "allowing the Obama administration to falsely claim the estimated $14.4 billion final cost of the Census 'saved' taxpayers money."

In 2008, the Census's budget grew by $3 billion after various IT problems cropped up. 

About $800 million of the savings was set aside for contingencies such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, Locke said today on his blog. 

Another $150 million was saved from other operations, such as a special count of American Indian reservations.

Locke said the cost of the Census could have increased by hundreds of millions if more workers had been needed to follow up door-to-door with those who didn't respond.