I have seen earlier postings about the disparity between what is reported to the SEC and what is increasingly being reported in press releases by power companies.

For example Virginia Power's latest SEC report states:

"We expect year 2000 costs to be within the range of $35 million and $45 million dollars of which $17.6 million has been expended as of March 31, 1999. Of this amount, $30 million to $40 million is for Virginia Power."

Virginia Power now says they are Y2K ready:http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-01 If they are Y2K ready, what are they going to spend the other $12.4 to $22.4 million on? I can understand May thru June using some of it, but that is a lot of money. Why would they spend any more money unless they thought there are problems that they are not ready for?

Has anyone got an explanation for this?

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

Answers

Sorry, the URL for the Virginia Power news release got truncated. The complete URL is:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story /07-01-1999/0000974483&EDATE=

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

Bill .... Could they be spending it on testing for the rest of '99 ? Or, MORE LIKELY, on PR consultants/lawyers , to smooth the transition over to failure/lawsuits/bankrupcy in Jan.- Feb. 2000 ? How about a " little stocking stuffing " for those in the " know " who will choose to ' hit the golden parachutes ' in December ??? Eagle

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

Perhaps they have not yet completed their "non-critical" systems such as accounting payroll, billing, etc. The vague information they are releasing really make it difficult to figure out what they have completed.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 1999

Because "ready" is a PR word. It doesn't mean "compliant".

-- Anonymous, July 04, 1999