Census Director John H. Thompson Abruptly Quits People-Counting Agency

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>WASHINGTON — The director of the people-counting Census Bureau is leaving his job just as the agency steps up its once-a-decade tally, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

>Census Bureau Director John H. Thompson was expected to leave the agency at the end of the year but instead will depart June 30, according to a government statement. Thompson said he is pursuing "opportunities in the private sector."

>"Your experience will be greatly missed," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the same statement.

>Thompson testified to a House committee last week that the 2020 Census was on track. Members of the panel expressed concern about the escalating costs and overruns of the decennial accounting exercise mandated by the Constitution. The 2010 Census was the costliest U.S. Census in history, at about $12.3 billion, Robert Goldenkoff, strategic issues director for the Government Accountability Office. Thompson, who was confirmed to his post in 2013, told the same panel that the cost of the 2020 Census will cost about $12.5 billion.

>Some of the increased projection is the result of modernizing the counting process, Goldenkoff said.
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