The Census Bureau is catching up on a backlog of delayed IT rollouts and cybersecurity tests, but officials still have a lot more work to do before they kick off the 2020 count, according to a congressional watchdog.
With the 2020 Census set to kick off April 1, bureau officials are working under the gun to finish standing up and testing the 52 IT systems they’ll rely on to enumerate the population. After budgetary issues initially put the bureau’s IT preparations behind schedule, officials “have made progress” in keeping with their revised deployment timeline, though they’re not in the clear yet, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report.
Auditors found there are still some 15 systems that risk missing deadlines for development, testing or integration. With Census Day six months away, the bureau doesn’t have much wiggle room in their timelines, and officials could be in trouble if they run into any significant issues during the rollout.
“These 15 at-risk systems add uncertainty to a highly compressed time frame over the next seven months,” GAO wrote in the report. “Going forward, it will be important that the bureau effectively manages…
