I wonder how many other states are encountering problems, besides the ones forum participants know about? This is really a sad state of affairs. As far as we know, this doesn't have anything to do with a Y2K bug. It doesn't matter. The hardship on families is terrible.

CALIFORNIA

The federally mandated statewide computer systems can cause problems so severe, ''California brought their (system) up and shut it off,'' [Hamilton, OH] county Human Services Director Don Thomas said today [Nov 1].

County Bureau of Family Support closes to upgrade computer system: Shutdown expected to last until Nov. 9 - Sacramento County's Bureau of Family Support closed its doors to the public Friday [Oct 29] after pulling the plug on its ancient computer for conversion to a new, fully automated system. The closure will be temporary, a total of seven weekdays extending to Nov. 9, and could result in a two- or three-day delay in the receipt of some child support checks, according to bureau chief Steve D. McKinney ...

Oct 30 http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local12_19991030.html

ILLINOIS

Emergency Child Support Funds made Available - Various problems have caused a backlog of about 3,000 payments in Illinois since Oct. 1. That was the federal deadline for each state to have a single processing center as part of welfare-reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 ...

Oct 20 http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001cak

NEVADA

Computer problem delays child support checks - The government computer that distributes local monthly child support payments has been plagued by glitches, resulting in hundreds of custodial parents receiving checks several weeks late since January, officials said ... The District Attorney's Child Support Division computer is part of the federal-state-county-linked NOMADS system that also monitors the Nevada welfare system and already has cost the state more than $100 million because of unexpected problems and delays ...

Oct20 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/1999/oct/20/509448792.html

NORTH CAROLINA

State Taking Blame, Giving Few Answers Regarding Late Child Support Payments - Coupons and envelopes for people to send their payments with did not go out. Now there are checks totalling $1.5 million that cannot be matched up with the proper case ... Franklin County says their records show that at least 1,500 checks from their area have been sent to Raleigh and just 83 families have been paid. At this point the state will not even estimate how long it is going to take to get the unravel the mess ... At this point they cannot even estimate when the problems will be solved.

Oct 20 http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001cMN

OHIO

County asks time on kid-support date - February is too soon for Hamilton County to join the state's computerized system that processes child support payments, county officials plan to tell state officials  County officials fear problems with the state's system ... county child-support officials this week plan to visit Montgomery County, which has joined the system and faced many problems ... The federally mandated statewide computer systems can cause problems so severe, ''California brought their (system) up and shut it off,'' county Human Services Director Don Thomas said today.

Nov 1 http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001gbG

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 01, 1999

Answers

Cheryl,

Add Florida to the list.

http://www.n-jcenter.com/1999/Oct/30/AREAE.htm

Link

Saturday, October 30, 1999

State late with child-support checks

By SUSAN WRIGHT and GARY FINEOUT Staff Writers

DAYTONA BEACH - Sarah Usilton's twin boys, who both play for New Smyrna Beach High's football team, couldn't go to their own homecoming two weeks ago. There just wasn't enough extra money for them to buy tickets for the school's carnival, never mind the dance. (snip)

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 01, 1999.

That is terrible. Don't mean to be cynical, but I am sure I read some Polly's post over the last few days that pointed out that there had been no public sector Y2K related problems since the beginning of the 10/1 fiscal year. Add Scranton and Philadelphias problems to that and we seem to have new fiscal year Y2K ramifications...

Given everything that is out there about the IRS, this is the year to figure taxes closely and not go for a big refund. I am assuming that tax bills will go out, but refunds will be further down on the list-- so to speak :).

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), November 01, 1999.

From the original thread, more on the North Carolina computer problem:

"It's our fault and there's no excuse..." That is what the state says about problems with the new centralized child support system."

"The counties which used to collect child support are not at fault, but are fielding a lot of the complaints." "Oakley used to handle child support collection for Franklin County, but now it is being handled by a centralized systemin Raleigh -- a system which is not working very well."

It appears that a changeover from local collections to a new centralized software system have caused some significant problems...very unfortunate. But what's this got to do with Y2K? Please present the evidence that this was related to Y2K, it certainly doesn't appeear that way!

It is true that software upgraded or replaced due to Y2K bugs can have other bugs as well, and I could understand if someone claims that such problems are related to the Y2K problem (as long as they don't stretch it and call such upgrade problems as being due to a y2k BUG or y2k FAILURE). But I don't even see the evidence for this kind of problem in the above posts. You might as well go back to 1995 and pull every software problem from back THEN and post them here - you would find plenty to choose from, and there would be about as much valilidty.

Please, at least make a vain attempt at finding the stories that actually attribute the problem to Y2K in some way.... such as "y2k bug", "y2k upgrade", etc. Otherwise, this kind of stuff is a joke. Perhaps one of the above stories fits the y2k upgrade/y2k replacement category, but you sure haven't presented the evidence.

"The federally mandated statewide computer systems can cause problems so severe, ''California brought their (system) up and shut it off"

Sounds to me like what we have here is new systems in each state, as a result of federal mandates, not as a result of y2k.

Facts about Y2K please, not reports about ANY kind of software bugs....otherwise, your just painting velvet Elvis's and Unicorns...

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), November 01, 1999.

FactFinder,

LOL - You're such a FOOL.

Look what I said at the beginning of the intro post:

"As far as we know, this doesn't have anything to do with a Y2K bug. It doesn't matter. The hardship on families is terrible."

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 01, 1999.

Here's another computer glitch which is hurting people. Doesn't matter whether it's caused by Y2K or not - does it? End result is still the same. A lot of stress, fear, and real hardship.

Computer glitch leaving thousands without full Social Security checks

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- State officials say a computer glitch will leave thousands of elderly and disabled Californians with reduced Social Security checks this week.

A systems error in California Department of Health Services computers mistakenly dropped 16,400 people from a state program that pays their Medicare premiums, said Ken August, a spokesman for the agency ...

Those receiving the slimmed-down checks [equal to three months of Medicare premiums] are enrolled in a state program called In-Home Supportive Services, which provides house cleaning, shopping and care to low-income elderly and disabled Californians ...

http://www.capitolalert.com/ap_wrapper.cgi?CA--SOCIALSE.125501.HTML

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 01, 1999.

Here's another example of financial hardship created by computer glitches:

PHILA SCHOOL DISTRICT TAKES SOME PAY BACK

Employees say personal bank accounts tapped into by payroll system

More than 200 school employees have learned that what the School District giveth, the School District also taketh away.

The workers' paychecks were electronically deposited into their bank accounts on Oct. 15. But three days later, as the Daily News began reporting disastrous problems with the district's new $26 million computer system, the School District reached back into its workers' bank accounts and took back the money - no warning, no explanation ...

http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/99/Oct/27/local/SKUL27.htm

If above link is outdated, copy is here: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001fu4

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 01, 1999.

And Cheryl, just think, only...

32 Federal Days left 'till the Roll!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 01, 1999.

K.S.

Please put fonts back the way you found them. :-)

Jerry

-- Jerry B (sskeptic76@erols.com), November 01, 1999.

Jerry B,

I always (well,at least these last 2 months) do return fonts to the standard non bold, non italic, Black, size="3"! LOL!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 01, 1999.

Actually, it wasn't all that great in the "old days"...some years ago, when I paid child support through the (California) county, they were so far behind that sometimes they would not cash my check for 5- 6 weeks after they received it...then not forward the money to my ex- until a month later! Pathetic!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), November 02, 1999.

this is awful. these are folks that were forced into the system likely because they didn't have routine payment of support and here they are the first to experience the disruptions. states ought to generate manual if they have to and print a year's worth of checks in advance. duh.

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), November 02, 1999.

Here's ANOTHER child support problem from ANOTHER state:

South Carolina Y2k test delays support checks

COLUMBIA (AP) - Child-support checks won't be in the mail for some 13,000 South Carolinians this month until the state checks its computer system for Year 2000 compliance  DSS mailed out 60,000 letters about the delay to be sure no one was excluded, but the number of people affected is far fewer, she said. "Simply put, we believe an inconvenience is necessary now in order to make sure that your child-support checks continue to reach you after the New Year," the letter said.

No money will be lost with the tests, another department spokesman, Jerry Adams, said. "We're sorry for any inconvenience, but we have to change the system to make sure we're Y2K compliant," Adams said.

Oct 28 http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001f16

Hmmmm ... looks like some of these propblems ARE related to Y2K.

So far we have 7 states [that we know of] that are having problems getting child support checks out - due to computer problems. Wonder how many more that we don't know about?

(1) Illinois

(2) California

(3) North Carolina

(4) Nevada

(5) Ohio

(6) Florida

(7) South Carolina

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 02, 1999.

Beckie,

Actually, Arizona is one of the few states with an outstanding Y2K track record. The one area where we get failing grades is in the so called social (income maintenance) area, which is apparently low on the priority list. I guess your situation falls in that category.

Now, as to the state of preparation of the capital of Arizona...can you spell "Polly?"
-- K. Stevens (K. Stevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 02, 1999.

Beckie,

Actually, Arizona is one of the few states with an outstanding Y2K track record. The one area where we get failing grades is in the so called social (income maintenance) area, which is apparently low on the priority list. I guess your situation falls in that category.

Now, as to the state of preparation of the capital of Arizona...can you spell "Polly?"

-- K. Stevens (K. Stevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 02, 1999.

FactFinder, I believe this thread DOES have a connection to Y2K because I've heard it said so many times, in connection with possible Y2K Social Security, pension and other payment glitches, well, we'll just do a manual workaround. I.e., hand-process the checks.

The child support computer problems affected a relatively small number of people here in North Carolina. As you read the following article, imagine the chaos and hardship for the millions of Social Security and military retirement recipients, just to name two classes of people who may be at risk.

Tuesday October 26, 1999 05:59 AM

Child Support Payments Picking up Steam After Backlog

RALEIGH (AP) -- State officials have distributed nearly $5 million since Friday to child support recipients whose payments were delayed by a flawed collections system.

About 90 percent of the checks were issued to recipients who get their payments through withholding of a spouse's payroll check. Those interim checks totaling $4.5 million as of Friday are being issued regardless of whether a payment has been recorded, said Theresa Dalton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Another $356,000 in emergency aid has gone to 534 families who have faced hardship because of payment delays.

Officials admit a new centralized collection system for child support payments should have been tested in a few counties before implementing the program statewide Sept. 24. But federal regulations required a system to be in place Oct. 1, they said.

``What a fiasco,'' said Lori Mullen of Wilmington, who received her $200 check Saturday, about three weeks late. ``They should have been ready. Now I have my check, but my credit is down the hole.''

The centralized child support tracking system is supposed to process payments totaling about $50 million every month and distribute the money to about 600,000 North Carolina families.

County officials predicted the backlog will reverberate for months, with parents who sent checks to Raleigh on time getting late notices, and delayed efforts to collect from the real delinquents.

What the article doesn't mention is how much notice the states were given to implement the new system. Was it a year? Two years? Three? Anybody know?

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), November 02, 1999.

Old Git,

This is what I find interesting, from the article you posted:

"Those interim checks totaling $4.5 million as of Friday are being issued regardless of whether a payment has been recorded"

It sounds like there are more problems than only those alluded to in these articles. You know that "systemic failure" stuff. IMHO

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 02, 1999.

Old Git, I concur that these conversions and problems are Y2K related. As far as Sacramento county is concerned, the old software would have crashed big time at rollover. My community group talked with a county rep a few months ago who acknowledged that the county was trying to use a program that had been cobbled together in another county. However at the time, Sacramento county had not yet obtained approval to use the new program.

I cannot believe they waited so long to convert. If the conversion goes like others I have lived through or observed, there will be 2 to 3 months of trying to correct the most obvious glitches and another 3 months of pointing fingers and arguing over the expense. (cynical - OK) They won't be ready for rollover, just because of the conversion glitches. *sigh*

-- Margaret J (janssm@aol.com), November 02, 1999.

Sorry "FactFinder" -

Every one of these cases, had you reviewed the actual orginal stories about each - including several not mentioned above about Driver's Licenses - occur IMMEDIATELY after a major upgrade was announced in each dept for the various computer programs involved: each was changed ONLY because of y2k issues in the original (older version) program. Right after the changeover - the dept's involved all then declared compliancy too .... they may be compliant, but their customers are complainin': cause the programs don't work.

Minor glitch - they'll fix it in three days - right?

Oh yes, I agree, these particular stories didn't mention y2k - neither did the "editted" story (in the Midwest) about a revised program bringing down the FBI's national database. Happened as soon as the local cops ran a state's non-compliant "fixed" criminal database - sure enough - "y2k" was deleted from the second version of the newspaper's web site: the editor sure looked stupid though denying he had deleted the reference ..... when I (and many others) had a copy of the "before" and "after" edits.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 02, 1999.

TENNESSEE Nov 5 - The Tennessee Department of Human Services and its contractors goofed big time last month when they sent more than a thousand double-payment child support checks to Shelby County parents. Then DHS stopped payment on an untold number of checks that parents had already cashed, and now banks are charging service fees, business owners are mad and DHS officials say they're sorry ...

The double payments are one of a laundry list of problems some parents have been facing after the state took over the collection and distribution of child support money on Oct. 1 ... Complaints have ranged from parents not getting their checks timely or being sent the checks that aren't theirs and callers being unable to get through to the toll-free customer service number.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001iAd

HAWAII Nov 5 - Checks were delayed so long in Hawaii that a class-action lawsuit has been filed by parents who want the interest the state collected while the checks were sitting undelivered.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001iAW

from same article above:

[Illinois] Department spokesman Michael Kharfen said delays have happened in only a few states.

"It's not really enough states to say there is some kind of pattern," he said Wednesday. "There are the unfortunate circumstances where some glitches or snags will happen." Some of the largest states have not yet switched, including California, Texas, Michigan and Ohio. Those states and those encountering glitches represent about half the nation's 20 million government-processed child-support cases.

Here's the "few states" this guy is talking about. Almost 10% of the states in the U.S.

(1) Illinois, (2) South Carolina (3) North Carolina, (4) Nevada & (5) Ohio (6) Florida, (7) Tennessee, (8) Hawaii (9) California [CA previously brought system up, had so many problems, they took it down.]

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 05, 1999.

MICHIGAN Nov 4 - Check's (not) in the mail A changeover to a new computer system has thousands of child support recipients in Saginaw County playing a waiting game for checks they depend upon to pay the bills ... the bigger problem was the new system's lower capacity for accomplishing the task. Previously, Friend of the Court workers averaged about 1,000 check mailings per day. The replacement system average so far is about 550 per day ...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001iAK

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 05, 1999.

It's 20% of states with child support payment problems!!! ... not 10%

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 05, 1999.

Cheryl,

Add Indiana to your list.

http://www.starnews.com/news/citystate/99/july/0711st_support.html

Link

Child support program faltering Errors are common in computer system that monitors parents' payments, taxes.

News Sports More Services

By Kyle Niederpruem Indianapolis Star/News

INDIANAPOLIS (July 11, 1999) -- Don Miller works hard for his money.

Hard enough that when the government seized a $3,000 tax refund, claiming incorrectly that he was behind in child support, he decided it was worth reclaiming. (snip)

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999.

Chery,

Add Indiana...

http://www.starnews.com/news/citystate/99/july/0711st_support.html

Link

Child support program faltering Errors are common in computer system that monitors parents' payments, taxes.

News Sports More Services

By Kyle Niederpruem Indianapolis Star/News

INDIANAPOLIS (July 11, 1999) -- Don Miller works hard for his money.

Hard enough that when the government seized a $3,000 tax refund, claiming incorrectly that he was behind in child support, he decided it was worth reclaiming. (snip)

-- Homer beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999.

INDIANA UPDATE - NOVEMBER 10, 1999:

Computer glitch has dads fuming over letters HAMMOND - About a half dozen angry men showed up Tuesday morning at the Child Support Division of the Lake County prosecutor's office here to get to the bottom of a letter stating each owes hundreds or even thousands of dollars in child support.

The men contend the prosecutor's office is wrong, as each said he was on schedule or ahead of schedule in paying his child support. "How can I owe when they take it out of my check? I don't know what this is all about," said William Todd, 53, of Gary ...

Showing up to the office didn't help much for the men, just a fraction of the hundreds who received the same letter. An office employee told Todd and others that a glitch in its new computer system is to blame for the bogus letters.

The men were told that each will be contacted in six to eight weeks. However, the letter states if the bill isn't corrected in 30 days, the state will move to hold their tax refunds next year ...

http://www.post-trib.com/news/story4/index.html

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), November 10, 1999.