ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Now for an update on the year 2000 computer countdown:
A congressional survey of 24 Cabinet departments and federal agencies found only six have estimated how much money will be needed to convert computer software programs so they can keep on clicking after midnight, Dec. 31, 1999.
The survey - conducted by the House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on government management, information and technology - found that most of the major departments are in the initial planning stages on how to fix the year 2000 problem, leading some House members to warn that the agencies may be running out of time.
Unless they receive the appropriate technical fix, many of the government's computer systems may mix up the year 2000 with the year 1900 and go backward in time instead of forward. The problem grows out of a cost-saving decision made by software designers years ago - to use two-digit numbers for dates, so that 96 stands for 1996. For the government's older computers, hitting 00 probably means they will go haywire.
Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., the subcommittee chairman and a former college professor, graded the 24 agencies this week at a news conference. Ten agencies received ``D's'' and four flunked because they had no conversion plan.
Horn, who held hearings on the issue, gave ``A's'' to the Agency for International Development, the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration for taking the right approach on the year 2000 problem.
``If you wait until 1998 to do the job, there won't be the resources available; they will already be gobbled up by some other group - private or public at all levels of government - and we're going to get down to a crunch. So we're trying to sensitize the executive branch,'' he said.
Rep. Constance A. Morella, R-Md., who held a House Science subcommittee hearing on the issue, said she was ``appalled'' that the government ``is not planning ahead in a coordinated manner for the new millennium. It's like `Back to the Future,' as a matter of fact. We're going to lose a hundred years - imagine what that is going to do to stocks and bonds and payments, retirement payments, transportation and defense systems.''
At the Pentagon, Horn said, the cost estimate to fix 358 million estimated lines of computer code ranges from about $350 million to $3 billion. The date problem affects a variety of activities, from maintenance schedules for missiles to employee personnel folders.
An administration official, who asked not to be identified, said agencies are making a ``good effort to respond and be ready for the year 2000.'' He said the Office of Management and Budget would ask agencies to provide information later this year on how much the conversion will cost.
Horn said a consultant projected the government's tab could run as high as $30 billion.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB