Report 2021-125 Recommendation 6 Responses

Report 2021-125: Regional Housing Needs Assessments: The Department of Housing and Community Development Must Improve Its Processes to Ensure That Communities Can Adequately Plan for Housing (Release Date: March 2022)

Recommendation #6 To: Finance, Department of

To ensure that the population projections it provides to inform HCD's needs assessments are as accurate as possible, by February 2023 Finance should review its projections for the counties with the most significant projection inaccuracies and adjust its methodology as necessary based on 2020 Census data and other information.

1-Year Agency Response

As additional Census data is released Finance incorporates it within released products after reviewing its projections for counties. Census 2020 data has been used to estimate and revise the January 1 estimate series for the State, counties, cities, and balance of counties, released in early May 2022. Likewise, the State and county estimates released in January 2023 also incorporated the 2020 Census as the starting base.

The delay in the Census Bureau's planned release of the Census 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) file from late summer 2022 to May 2023 has changed the timeline and plans for the next projections series. Accordingly, the DRU will produce an interim projection series based on as much Census 2020 data as is available for release in spring 2023 (See Projections Page). This interim projection update will then be superseded by a new projection series based fully on a Census 2020 baseline and new assumptions in the spring of 2024.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

This review continues as additional Census quality metrics are released. Census 2020 data has been used to estimate and revise the Jan. 1 estimate series for the State, and county, city, and balance of counties which was released in early May 2022.

While the next projections series was planned for release in early 2023, the recent announcement from the Census Bureau that the release of the Census 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) file will occur in May 2023 rather than late summer 2022 has changed the timeline and plans. Accordingly DRU has begun the process to produce an interim projection series based on as much Census 2020 data as is available for release in early 2023 (See Projections Page: https://dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/projections/ ). This interim projection update would then be superseded by a new projection series based fully on a Census 2020 baseline and new assumptions in the spring of 2024.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

This review has commenced and will continue over the coming months as Finance releases more estimates and projections and further Census 2020 data becomes available.

Already, Census 2020 data has informed the process of developing Jan. 1, 2022 state, county, city, and balance of county estimates. Those estimates were released in early May 2022. (See attached exhibits). In addition, following conversations with the California Department of Public Health, DRU provided a reweighted projection file for years 2020-2023 using the race/ethnic distributions from the 2020 Decennial Census PL 94-171 redistricting data to better track COVID-19 vaccinations.

The next projections series was planned for release in early 2023. The recent announcement from the Census Bureau that the release of the Census 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) file will occur in May 2023 rather than late summer 2022 has changed the timeline and plans. Over the next several months DRU will adjust the existing projections to better reflect the limited amount of Census 2020 data that now exists. This interim projection update would then be superseded by a new projection series based fully on a Census 2020 baseline and new assumptions in the fall of 2023.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2021-125

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.