DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180595

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   50 lines

PEOPLE COUNTERS PUSH FOR SAMPLING

Those who plan new shops and schools, redraw voting districts and provide for the poor all likely consult the same source of information: the U.S. Census.

But the decennial survey of Americans and their personal and professional lives could be more useful if it were more timely and accurate, the people-counters at the U.S. Census Bureau say. So, provided the funding and approval required for many changes come from Congress, they have ambitious plans to improve their report.

``Businesses don't make a move until they see what's in the neighborhood,'' said W. Kenneth Wright, an information services specialist with the bureau's Charlotte-based regional office. ``And if all goes according to plan, never again will they or other users have to rely on data in 1997 that's based on 1989 information.''

Invited by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, a clearinghouse of information for local cities, Wright outlined plans for the public Tuesday at the Virginia Beach Central Library.

In the next month, the Census Bureau will attempt to convince Congress that after census questionnaires are mailed to the nation's estimated 120 million housing units and returned, statistical sampling - rather than seeking to count every person who did not respond - could provide more exact numbers. The GOP-led body has been resistant.

Further, the bureau wants to eliminate the ``long form,'' which is sent to one in six households every 10 years to collect a host of data not available from any other source or information required by law. In its place, the agency wants to rely on its so-called American Community Survey, which would provide the same information more often with a database created and updated by questioning a sample of 250,000 people each month.

Already in the testing stage is another program called the Data Access Dissemination System, or DADS, that could allow government and industry planners to request specific information on a geographic area not produced automatically by the Census Bureau.

``In the past if a table didn't do what you wanted, you had to make adjustments,'' Wright said.

For the 2000 census, the bureau also plans to make other changes that include simplifying the census forms, printing forms in 30 languages and making them available at public places where tax forms now are offered, and sending please and thank you notes to respondents. ILLUSTRATION: File color photo

The Census Bureau hopes Congress will agree that sampling, not

individual counting, could provide more exact numbers.

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