On the first day of the year 2000, counties will face a big headache. Some say the cure for the headache will cost millions of dollars. Los Angeles County, Calif. may spend at least $30 million. The state of Nebraska: $28 million.
But that’s better than the alternative: a shutdown of operations.
The problem: Computers could skip the next century, sending date-determined calculations into reverse warp.
The reason: Many computer programs use only the last two digits of a year (96 instead of 1996) and assume that the first two digits are 19. Computers calculate correctly as long as dates are in the same century, but problems pop up when dates in two different centuries are used.
For example, subtracting Dec. 31, 1995 from Dec. 31, 2005, to determine someone’s age would produce the incorrect answer of minus 90 instead of the correct answer: 10. Jan. 1, 2000 might become Jan. 1, 1900.
How did this happen? Designers created programs that way in order to save money, disk space and memory.
There is no technical “quick-fix.” Each line of code in a computer must be examined individually, according to Dean Mesterharm, deputy commissioner for systems, Social Security Administration, which began its conversion process in 1989.
Mesterharm recently testified before a congressional hearing on the topic before the House Government Reform subcommittee on government management, information and technology, chaired by Representative Steve Horn (R-Calif.). The hearing was titled “Is Saturday, January 1, 2000 the Date for Computer Disaster?”
Horn predicted the conversion process will cost federal agencies alone about $30 billion.
The conversion process includes changing the formats of dates to include the century and making sure all new software is year 2000 compliant. Computer systems of all sizes (mainframe, mini and micro) must be inspected for this problem and converted to a four-digit-year field where necessary, the Congressional Research Service recommends.
Year data fields must be corrected in operating systems, compilers, applications, procedures, databases and in the data itself.
The cost is expected to be enormous. The state of Nebraska, with 12,000 computer programs and 12 million lines of code, estimates it will cost $28 million to pay for a conversion. Earlier this month, the state legislature and governor agreed to divert part of the state’s cigarette tax to provide $11.5 million in funding.
Allan Robinson, Project 2000 manager in Los Angeles County, has not yet come up with a hard figure, but all departments that use Los Angeles County’s information systems department may look at a total price tag of about $30 million, he said.
Robinson said to arrive at that figure, he multiplies the lines of code in the county’s computers (that use his department) by a factor of $1.10 to $1.50 per line of code. Other costs to consider include planning, testing, project management, and unexpected hardware and software upgrades.
Rates are expected to rise for contract help, since there are a limited number of service providers.
“I knew it was going to be a problem 10 years ago,” Robinson said. “Right now, we’re in the beginning process. We’ve run into problems already on a limited scale.” The problems, he noted, include licensing for medical staff (most expire beyond the year 2000) and assigning court dates, which can be scheduled beyond the year 2000.
But those types of predicaments are only a foreshadowing of much larger problems that will crop up. Miscalculations could occur with payroll, retirement benefits, welfare recipient eligibility — the list goes on and on.
“It doesn’t sound complicated, but it is a big deal,” said Steven Jennings, director of data processing for Harris County, Texas. He also heads up the National Association of County Technology Administrators. He said the group may hold a workshop on the subject at this summer’s NACo conference in Harris County.
Peter de Jager, an industry expert, says government computers could wreak havoc on all sorts of tabulations involving ages, benefit payments and other dated records that affect counties.
Working with the Tenagra Corporation in Houston, Texas, he has created the Year 2000 Internet Information Center at: http://www.year2000.com/.
The Information Technology Association of America estimates the cost to correct the problem in computers across the United States at between $50 billion to $75 billion. Other estimates put the figure even higher, between $300 billion to $600 billion.
“Neither the government nor industry has ever attacked a computer systems problem this massive or pervasive,” said George Munoz, assistant secretary of management and Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Treasury, who also testified at Horn’s hearing.
Counties need to realize the magnitude of the problem and try to get a handle on cost estimates to budget for conversion. Robinson said he has made several presentations to various departments in Los Angeles County. “It does take convincing,” he said.
Although he said most are eventually convinced of the problems that will occur without conversion, he said he’s also confronted with some who say, “Yeah, but we have to do other things first.” But he noted that this is a problem that is under a tight deadline, and costs will only increase if a decision to deal with it is delayed.
It’s hard to explain, especially “when you’re not getting anything new for your money,” Robinson said. “It’s just so you can keep doing what you’re doing. That’s a hurdle that’s hard for some to swallow.”
Robinson said he even had a tough time explaining the issue to his wife. “I never did convince her.”
The Year 2000 Problem: What counties can do now