http://www.bowesnet.com/dht/Z03_j11water.html

Y2K causes water-bill glitch

Herald-Tribune staff

Thank the millennium bug for postponing your water bill. City finance director Dave Gourlay admits there have been a few glitches as a result of the Y2K, most notably problems with the water bill. City residents will get their bills in the mail two weeks late. Gourlay says the delay is a result of data that has been put on the water bill. "It's not the calculation of the bill itself but the information that is being reported on the bill," he said. City hall had, however, expected a few bumps when 1999 rolled over into 2000. "There were elements of our software that were not Y2K-compliant. They mainly centred around reporting issues but nothing that would affect the delivery of service in the city." The city hopes to iron out the problems in the system by the end of this week. Gourlay isn't certain whether or not other cities have experienced similar problems. The cost to the city of preparing for a possible system crash as a result of Y2K - named for the possible computer problem of reading 1900 instead of 2000 - isn't known. "There was an investment in software upgrades, time, and people," he said. "Some of it was part of normal business."

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), January 13, 2000

Answers

Thanks, Homer. Jo Anne Slaven might be interested in this one :-)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 13, 2000.

Canada's a pretty big country. What "City" are we talking about?

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 13, 2000.