Pentagon Rates Low in Y2K Preparedness

While much of the federal government has made significant progress in preparing for the Year 2000 computer problem, many key agencies lag behind, including the Department of Defense, a House panel said Tuesday.

The Pentagon received the panel’s second-lowest grade, a C-minus, for having only 88% of its essential computer systems in compliance. But the department has by far the largest number of systems to inoculate against the Y2K bug, and a spokeswoman for the congressional panel said that the Pentagon has made fixing its computer problems a priority.

In issuing its latest report card on how 24 important agencies are dealing with the bug, the House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on government management, information and technology gave a failing grade to only the Agency for International Development. The panel said that the agency--which provides economic and humanitarian assistance to developing nations--has prepared less than one-third of its critical computer systems for the turn of the century.

The Y2K problem stems from computers not being able to distinguish dates between centuries because the machines have been programmed to register only the last two digits of a year.

Six major federal departments received C grades from the House panel for their efforts, including the Justice and Transportation departments. But 14 agencies got grades of A or A-minus, bringing the federal government’s overall grade to a B-minus.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach), said he was pleased that 94% of the government’s key computer systems--referred to as “mission-critical”--are now in compliance, up from 74% in February.

But Horn expressed concern that the FAA’s Air Traffic Control system and the computer systems that process Medicaid payments are among those that remain to be repaired.

The Californian also reported that even in cases where systems are largely in compliance, many agencies have not developed contingency programs for unexpected problems or fully tested their computers.