News from COPAFS
Feb. 2004

The Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) held its quarterly meeting in Washington, D.C., on December 12, 2003. AUBER member Tom Witt was among the 40 persons in attendance.

Four presenters provided detailed updates on the following topics: (1) Phil Fulton of the Department of Agriculture described the Economic Research Service (ERS) and encouraged interested groups to visit its web site at <http://www.ers.usda.gov>; (2) Pat Doyle outlined the Census Bureau's redesigned questionnaire for the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); (3) Lu Jeppesen and Tony Netto described the efforts of Seek Data, a private company that is designing meaningful data products for Puerto Rico; and (4) Brian Harris-Kojetin, Office of Statistical Policy, OMB, and Karen Lee, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, of the provided insights into the OMB Clearance Process for Federal Statistical Surveys.

In addition to these informative presentations, general discussion centered around the still uncertain FY05 budget numbers for federal statistical agencies, and concern, if not bewilderment, about OMB's designation of all statistical agencies as primarily either commercial or governmental.

Some of the specific issues discussed during the meeting include (1) the transfer of many National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) functions to the Institute of Educational Science; (2) a proposal to move the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to the Research and Special Programs Administration, described as an "odds and ends" division of the Department of Transportation; and (3) a move to outsource the work of the entire Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) as a result of its commercial designation by OMB.

The FY05 budget is expected to become more firm by the time of the March 2004 COPAFS meeting. At this writing, the Census Bureau appears to be getting what it wants in order to properly fund the American Community Survey (ACS), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is also getting the funds it requested, but proposed refinements to TIGER are being cut from the budget. The next issue of the AUBER newsletter should contain substantive details.

Visit the COPAFS web site to view minutes of its quarterly meetings <http://members.aol.com/copafs/mindex.htm> or to read Executive Director Ed Spar's recap of COPAFS activities for the previous year <http://members.aol.com/copafs/news.htm>.

AUBER's representatives to COPAFS are Tom Witt, West Virginia University, and Paul Zelus, Idaho State University.

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