The US government is no longer flunking the Year 2000 test, but it's still getting lousy grades.
That was the conclusion of the lastest quarterly congressional report card that gave the feds a D for their attempts to fix the so-called Year 2000 problem, also known as Y2K.
"We should be cautious, however, about using the word 'improvement' in the context of a D grade," said Representative Steven Horn (R-California), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, in releasing his report Wednesday.
"This is not a grade you take home to your parents, and it is definitely not a grade to take back to the voters and taxpayers," said Horn, who gave the government an F in his last report card.
But Jack Gribben, spokesman for President Clinton's Year 2000 Conversion Council, which oversees federal Year 2000 efforts, said Horn's grading system was misleading. Although he generally agrees with the report's findings, Gribben said the government's progress on flyswatting the millennium bug deserved a better grade.
"If I had to grade the government, I would give it an overall grade of C or B-," said Gribben. "We are confident that the vast majority of the government's critical systems are going to be ready for the year 2000."
Horn's current projections don't bear out the government's optimism. If current trends persist, Horn said that more than a third of the government's mission-critical systems will not be ready when the clock turns over on 1 January 2000. Most vulnerable are the departments of Health and Human Services and Energy, which both earned an F for the second quarter in a row. Even worse, the departments of Justice and Education were downgraded from a D to F.
Horn also singled out the Department of Defense, which earned a D for its lackluster performance, and the Department of Transportation, which sunk from a D to an F.
If accurate, those grades are particularly worrisome, given the roles of those agencies in the critical areas of national security and transportation infrastructure.
The millennium bug is caused by old computers and computer chips programmed to read only the last two digits of a calendar year. Systems that aren't repaired will mistakenly read 2000 as 1900, which may or may not result in a catastrophic breakdown of the computing infrastructure. Companies and governments are frantically converting their systems, but many believe the efforts are too little, too late.
Faring best among the government's 24 largest agencies were the Social Security Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Small Business Administration. All earned an A from Horn.
Other standouts include the General Services Administration, which earned a B+, and the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency, which each earned a B.
The grades were based on the quarterly Y2K reports that federal agencies must file to the Office of Management and Budget, as well as information culled from the General Accounting Office, the federal government's auditor.
Horn's report card jibes with the recent findings of the Office of Management and Budget's quarterly Y2K progress report.
That report, released last Friday, found that as of mid-August only 50 percent of the government's 7,343 mission-critical systems are Y2K compliant, or impervious to the millennium bug. That number is up 40 percent from May.
"While increased high-level focus on the problem has resulted in improvement at some of the most troubled agencies, their overall progress must increase if they are to meet the government-wide year 2000 milestones for completing their work by March 31, 1999," the report said.
The Office of Management and Budget, which broke down the government's 24 agencies into three tiers, found a patchwork of progress. Seven agencies, including the departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, State, and Transportation, were classified as Tier 1, which demonstrate "insufficient evidence of adequate progress."
Eight agencies, including the departments of Labor, Interior, and Treasury, were classified as Tier 2, defined as those that have "demonstrated progress, but still are of concern." And nine agencies, most notably the Social Security Administration, earned Tier 3 status, defined as those that are "making satisfactory progress."
During the last quarter, the Office of Management and Budget report found that the Clinton administration took several steps toward ensuring that Y2K is the federal government's top management priority.
A revised estimate from the Office of Management and Budget put the cost of eradicating the bug at US$5.4 billion, up from $5 billion in May. But Horn begged to differ, saying the cost will be closer to $6.3 billion. Both estimates are based on the same documents.
"OMB has yet to offer a satisfactory explanation for the $1 billion discrepancy," said Horn.
Beyond the federal agencies, Horn said it was important to focus more attention on the efforts of state and local governments to fix Y2K.
Horn, who just wrapped up a series of six Y2K field hearings around the country, said that state and local governments are not faring much better than Washington in preparing for the date rollover.
