Gore pushes agencies to step up Y2K fixes

DAILY BRIEFING

Gore pushes agencies to step up Y2K fixes

The Clinton administration is increasingly worried that federal agencies will fail to rid their computers of the year 2000 bug, prompting Vice President Al Gore to put additional pressure on federal executives to step up their year 2000 conversion efforts.

The Office of Management and Budget has also recalculated the cost of federal efforts to combat the year 2000 computer problem at $5.4 billion, the Washington Post reported today. G. Edward DeSeve, acting deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told a gathering of federal information technology executives Wednesday that the administration had asked Congress for $3.25 billion in fiscal 1998 supplemental spending for year 2000 fixes. The funds, if approved, would be available until 2001.

On Wednesday, Gore met with executives from the seven agencies whose Y2K efforts are the furthest behind--the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, State and Transportation and the Agency for International Development. OMB's most recent quarterly report on Y2K progress revealed that some agencies won't make the administration's Sept. 30 deadline for completing systems renovations.

At the meeting, Gore asked each agency representative to commit to making Y2K fixes their top priority.

"The Vice President was very direct and kind of stern," DeSeve said, noting that Gore closely questioned the Health and Human Services representative about Medicare systems. The Health Care Financing Administration, the HHS component that administers Medicare, must work with more than 60 contractors to fix 50 million lines of code before the century change.

DeSeve said contingency planning must be a priority for agencies as it becomes clear that some systems will simply not be fixed on time.

"Some of you know in your heart of hearts that you won't get there," DeSeve told agency executives at the gathering. But he expressed guarded optimism that the government as a whole can avoid major Y2K disasters. "I think we've got a good wind at our back," DeSeve said.