The Social Security Administration, poster child for good management of the year 2000 computer systems issue, got a black eye recently when the General Accounting Office reported that some SSA systems are at risk of failing after all.
SSA did an incomplete initial assessment of the work needed to ensure its systems would continue to operate after the turn of the century, GAO reported. Although SSA did a good job of evaluating the work needed on its own systems, it overlooked Disability Determination Services (DDS) systems operated by the 50 states. The states determine whether an applicant is eligible for disability benefits, then upload the client data to SSA's computers.
More than 33 million lines of software code are at work in those state computers. If the states do not get their systems fixed in time, "SSA could face major disruptions in its ability to process initial disability claims for millions of individuals throughout the county," GAO said in its report, "Social Security Administration: Significant Progress Made in Year 2000 Efforts, But Key Risks Remain."
SSA did not dispute GAO's findings but said the situation is under control. SSA's response said it was confident that the state DDS systems would be fixed by December 1998. That would give the agency and the states a year to test the repairs.
The year 2000 problem stems from the fact that for many years computers were programmed with two-digit notations, such as "97," to designate years. It was assumed that all such years began with "19." Unless the software is updated, the systems will not recognize the correct date for years beginning with "20."
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