NOVEMBER 22, 11:35 EST

Lawmaker Gives Good Grades on Y2K

By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)  Rep. Stephen Horn, who gave failing grades to many federal agencies when he began tracking their Y2K preparations in 1996, says in a final report today that the government for the most part has succeeded in fixing its computers.

But Horn, R-Calif., also singled out the Justice Department for not completing work on three mission-critical systems and said that of 43 federal programs deemed crucial to Americans, 18 still have work to do.

Those programs include child nutrition, food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, public housing and unemployment insurance.

Air traffic control systems still need to complete some system-to-system testing and there are concerns about how the aviation operations of other countries will be affected by the computer bug.

But Horn and other lawmakers emphasized that domestic flights will be safe. ``Nothing will fly that is not totally safe,'' said Rep. Constance Morella, R-Md.

``We have come a long way since we began examining this enormous technological challenge four years ago,'' Horn said at a news conference.

He gave ``A'' grades to 12 of the 24 largest federal departments and agencies, all of which reported that their computer systems are 100 percent Y2K compliant.

But he said four departments  Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice and Treasury  still have a few mission-critical systems to fix, and he gave a ``D'' mark to Justice. ``The department does have a contingency plan,'' he said. ``But the plan is worthless because it has not been tested.''

There are now 39 days before the new year, when computers that read only the last two digits of a year could mistake 2000, or ``00,'' for 1900, causing malfunctions and breakdowns.

Horn also noted that the federal government is only one link in the chain that delivers public services, and some programs are not ready because state, local and private-sector partners are ill-prepared to implement the federal program.

He mentioned a recent audit by the Housing and Urban Development Department's inspector general that found that local public housing authorities in eight of nine cities checked were seriously behind in their year 2000 repair work

-- G Bailey (glbailey1@excite.com), November 22, 1999

Answers

Real-life real-time exams coming up. Pass or fail. Live or die.

-- soon (soon@soon.soon), November 22, 1999.

This is NOT good news people: re-read what has NOT been done.

I applaud the successes of those in the fed programs who have finished - or at least claim to have finished. We wish them well, and hope there are few incidential failures later.

BUT - there are too many (8 of 9 housing cities not yet done!) to be even partially optimistic - despite what the headline choses to let you believe.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 22, 1999.