1 BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 2 5901 GREEN VALLEY CIRCLE 3 CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA 4 5 6 7 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT 8 FEBRUARY 23, 2010 9 10 ITEM P ADMINISTRATIVE MATTER 11 ITEM P1 CENSUS 2010: CALIFORNIA COMPLETE COUNT 12 13 ---o0o--- 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Reported by: Juli Price Jackson 21 No. CSR 5214 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 1 2 P R E S E N T 3 4 For the Board Betty T. Yee of Equalization: Chair 5 Jerome E. Horton 6 Vice-Chair 7 Bill Leonard Member 8 Michelle Steel 9 Member 10 Marcy Jo Mandel Appearing for John 11 Chiang, State Controller (per 12 Government Code Section 7.9) 13 Diane G. Olson 14 Chief, Board Proceedings Division 15 16 17 ---oOo--- 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 5901 GREEN VALLEY CIRCLE 2 CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA 3 FEBRUARY 23, 2010 4 ---oOo--- 5 MS. YEE: Good morning, Members. Let's call 6 today's Board of Equalization meeting to order. 7 Our first item on the agenda is an 8 administrative matter and I wanted to just take a brief 9 opportunity to just shed some light on Census 2010. 10 This is the year of the federal decennial census and we 11 do have two representatives from the administration 12 here. 13 If I could ask them to come forward and present 14 us with an overview of what we can expect relative to 15 Census 2010 and engage any questions, Members, that you 16 may have for them. 17 Good morning. 18 MS. KITAGUE: Good morning. Thank you, Board 19 Members and thank you for having me address such an 20 important topic. 21 My name is Ditas Kitague. And I am the 22 Director of the State's Census Outreach Project. You 23 may think, okay, the decennial census is actually a 24 Federal operation, and it is, and, so, why is the State 25 involved? 26 Well, the State's involved because the State 27 has so much at stake if we do not get a complete count. 28 So, I wanted to spend just a couple minutes going over 3 1 the importance of the census and what you guys can do as 2 members of our community to insure that all Californians 3 are counted. 4 Now, you guys are kind of all tax folks, right? 5 So, you, of course, know what April 15th is, it's tax 6 day, as we call it. But April 1st, 2010 is the one day 7 once a decade where Californians can demand their tax 8 dollars back from Washington, D. C. by simply taking ten 9 minutes to fill out their census form. 10 So, I wanted to go ahead and you guys can have 11 the presentation, just a short presentation and we'll go 12 through that. 13 So, April 1st is National Census Day. And it 14 is 37 days and counting. You can do a lot in 37 days. 15 You can walk to -- from Sacramento to Washington, D. C. 16 and back, but I'm not going to ask you guys to do that. 17 But I am going to challenge you to take the 10-10-10 18 challenge, which is to talk to ten people every day 19 about taking ten minutes to fill out their census form 20 when it comes out on March 15 because it is so 21 important. We are basically -- I've been at this for 22 about a year -- and to use the Olympics as sort of a 23 background, we're in the gold medal round. We have to 24 get everyone counted andI am counting on all of you to 25 be members of our team to reach out to the hardest to 26 count Californians who may be afraid to fill out their 27 forms. 28 Because for every person that we miss in 4 1 California, it costs the state about $3,000 in money 2 back per year over the next ten years. So, it will 3 impact their communities, their schools, the roads, our 4 hospitals and the very foundation of our democracy is 5 depending on all of us to do the right thing and mail 6 back our form. 7 So, let me just go over a little bit of what's 8 at stake. Of course, it's power and it's money. When I 9 talk about power, it's about Congressional seats, it's 10 about reapportionment. It will decide, in some cases, 11 who gets elected and who gets represented. It impacts a 12 our redistricting with Prop. 11 going through. We could 13 lose an existing Congressional seat. We have 53 right 14 now and we could actually lose for the first time in the 15 history of California being a state, we could lose that 16 53rd seat to North Carolina, to Minnesota, to, God 17 forbid, Texas, because I think they're going to gain 18 four seats. 19 And for those of you who are familiar with how 20 they reapportion, it's done through a very scientific 21 equation called the method of equal proportions. 22 And this equation is so precise that we could 23 actually lose a seat by merely missing ten people. In 24 fact, Oregon, in 2000, they lost gaining an additional 25 seat by two people. 26 So, when people tell you every one counts, they 27 really do. 28 And I am really looking forward to working with 5 1 all of you and your staff to make sure that we get the 2 outreach done. 3 So, I talked about power, but let's talk about 4 money. I mentioned the $3,000 for each person missed 5 each year. But, really, over $435 billion in federal 6 funding is distributed based on our census numbers, 7 based on who we have in California. In 1990 California 8 lost over $1 billion because of our undercount. And in 9 2000 it cost us another $1.5 billion. 10 But let me bring it down to the county level. 11 A Price Waterhouse study said that in 2000 Orange County 12 lost 61 million; LA County, 636 million; San Francisco, 13 30 million; and san Joaquin, 18 million based on the 14 fact that they were undercounted. 15 And let's just talk a little bit about 16 education, Title I, Part A funding, I just took LA 17 County because we're down here, they got -- in 2009-2010 18 over $1 billion in Title I funding and that's about 19 getting all of our children counted. And children in 20 California are one of the most undercounted populations. 21 So, really doing some outreach to our schools and 22 they're also our trusted messengers, I don't know if you 23 have children, but my six-year-old comes home every day, 24 when I'm brushing my teeth, she turns the water off, "My 25 mommy, you need to save water." They're really great 26 messengers that can help folks who maybe have, you know, 27 limited English proficiency at home or who may be afraid 28 of the government. They can bring a message home to be 6 1 counted because our schools are taking count of it. 2 The next slide I want to show you, it's the 3 largest, the ten largest federal grant programs. And, 4 as you see, it's the slide right here (indicating), I 5 believe it's slide No. 4, it shows you the federal grant 6 programs which include Health and Human Services, Labor, 7 (which are unemployment insurance), Transportation, for 8 our highway planning, and Construction, Agriculture, 9 which is, I think, the school lunch programs, the TANF, 10 Pell grants for higher ed, Title I again, special ed, 11 Headstart. Those are just some of the top ten programs 12 that are -- there are complex formulas that divvy up 13 those dollars that come back to the states, cities and 14 counties. 15 So, I don't want to dwell too much on that, but 16 I wanted to let you know that we've been busy partnering 17 with the US Census Bureau, with the elected officials 18 and with community members and foundations across the 19 state. 20 Some of you I remember from 2000. And I led 21 the State's efforts back then. We had a bigger budget. 22 The state was in different fiscal situation and we had 23 $24.7 million, State dollars to spend on outreach. 24 And the reason why the legislature put that 25 aside was because in 1999 the US Census Bureau came 26 forward and said, "California, you're going to get a 27 58 percent mail response rate," which is like failing. 28 I mean, if you're a school teacher, it's terrible. 7 1 And, so, in the infinite wisdom of the Governor 2 and the legislature, they a put away some dollars and 3 said, "California knows best how to reach our hardest to 4 count. The federal government's got to worry about the 5 whole rest of the nation. Will they do a good job here? 6 We don't know if they will or not." So, we put that 7 aside and what ended up happening was California ended 8 up getting a 70 percent mail response, which still 9 sounds like a C, but when you compare it to the overall 10 nation, the overall national mail response rate was 68 11 percent. 12 So, in fact, California outpaced the entire 13 country with that investment, a lot of era dollars for 14 transportation and stuff that we've been seeing has been 15 based on those 2000 numbers. So, we're lucky that we 16 did have a good count. 17 We've held regional meetings throughout the 18 state to engage those community-based organizations, 19 because they're really the trusted messengers in the 20 community that can get the people who are afraid to 21 respond to respond. 22 We have a California Complete Count Committee, 23 which Ms. Yee is on that committee and participates and 24 that's why we're here today. 25 We've also engaged out State agencies to make 26 sure that the people that they're touching get the 27 messages too. Lottery Commission is going to do some 28 messaging on the, you know, lottery games. The 8 1 Controller is going to print messages on all of the 2 paychecks that go out. DMV is going to do some items -- 3 just to name a few. 4 We're also working with the schools to insure 5 that, again, students, who are trusted messengers, are 6 taking that message back home. 7 But the big thing that we did do, I mentioned 8 in 2000 we had $24 million. This time around we had 2 9 million, and, so, it's quite a bit less for our 10 statewide efforts. We had 55 staff in 2000. And now I 11 have four and a half. So, we took a million dollars of 12 our budget and we invested in the top 13 hardest to 13 count counties in the State. 14 And you say, "Well, why did you do the top 13 15 and why not all 58?" Well, with less dollars, you 16 really want to focus your energy down. But when you 17 look at the top 13, it reaches 80 percent of the hardest 18 to count population. So, that's where we made our 19 investment and we're working with counties right now to 20 fill the gap where the US Census Bureau is not, you 21 know, stepping up to the plate. 22 The investment we made in 2000 was a good 23 investment. The US Census Bureau saw that California 24 did extremely well. And they took the lessons learned 25 and they have picked up some of the slack since we don't 26 have those abilities. 27 I wanted to just point out that we have a great 28 website as a resource and that on March 20th, it's "Be 9 1 California, Be Counted Day." And we will be doing 2 events throughout the state and would like to encourage 3 you to connect with folks in your District offices to do 4 some things. 5 Just want to go over my last slide, which is 6 the top five things you can do. You can implement 7 activities. And I've handed out this Business Resource 8 Guide, which is also on online, and it has ready to go 9 tweets, sample newsletters messages, e-mail blasts, 10 messages for video monitors, cash registers -- all of 11 those things and it's also good for businesses 12 throughout the State to reach out to their employees and 13 to their districts. So, I'd love for you guys to do 14 that. Use new media to extend our outreach. Coordinate 15 with the Census Bureau and local foundations in your 16 districts. But, mostly, be a Census Ambassador and 17 include census messaging throughout all your regular 18 events and try too participate in a March 20th event. 19 So, that's what I have for now but I am open 20 for some questions. 21 MS. YEE: Thank you very much, Ms. Kitague. 22 Are there questions, Members? 23 Okay, just a couple of thoughts. 24 One is March 20th is a key date preceding the 25 April 1st census day. So, I know there will be events 26 being held up and down the State that I hope Members 27 will be able to participate in. 28 And I just want to applaud the California 10 1 Complete Count Effort because at this early stage there 2 have been a lot of resources made available -- the 3 website is fabulous -- and I can't say enough about how 4 useful it is to have a lot of the end language resources 5 in place so quickly this time around. 6 Okay, other comments, Members? 7 Okay, thank you very much? 8 Yes, please? 9 MS. KITAGUE: So, I just want to challenge you, 10 every day for the next 37 days tell ten people about the 11 importance of being counted. 12 So, be Californian and be counted. 13 Thank you for your time. 14 MS. YEE: Thank you. 15 ---o0o--- 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 11 1 . 2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3 4 State of California ) 5 ) ss 6 County of Sacramento ) 7 8 I, JULI PRICE JACKSON, Hearing Reporter for the 9 California State Board of Equalization certify that on 10 FEBRUARY 23, 2010 I recorded verbatim, in shorthand, to 11 the best of my ability, the proceedings in the 12 above-entitled hearing; that I transcribed the shorthand 13 writing into typewriting; and that the preceding pages 1 14 through 11 constitute a complete and accurate 15 transcription of the shorthand writing. 16 17 Dated: MAY 24, 2010 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 JULI PRICE JACKSON 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 12