Congress and the White House have told most agencies they will have to update their computer systems for the year 2000 without any extra money. But seven highly computer-dependent agencies wangled more than $612 million in extra fiscal 1998 funding to fight off the millenium bug anyway.
Office of Management and Budget officials said they were persuaded that the seven agencies could not get their systems fixed in time without the extra funds. The sums were included in the administration's budget request and approved by Congress as part of the appropriations process this year.
The largest chunk of extra money, $328 million, went to the IRS, which was struggling with serious systems problems even before the year 2000 issue arose. The next-largest amount, $160 million, is for the Labor Department, which had requested $200 million.
Labor is passing the money along to states for operation of unemployment insurance (UI) programs. Earlier this year, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman told a congressional committee that "failure to address this [year 2000] problem would . . . have an extremely detrimental impact on the UI system and unemployed individuals who rely on UI benefits to support themselves and their families."
The other beneficiaries of the extra funds are the Health Care Financing Administration, the departments of State and Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Reconnaissance Office. All except NRO received less than $60 million apiece. The amount appropriated for NRO is classified.
The year 2000 problem stems from the fact that until recently, most computers were programmed with two-digit fields for years, such as "97," and instructed to treat all such dates as beginning with "19." Unless those instructions are altered, systems will make erroneous calculations or stop running altogether when they encounter dates in the next century.
By most accounts, the year 2000 problem is not technically challenging. However, repairs are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Many agencies are relying on contract help to complete the repairs and test the updated code.
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