Agencies' systems pass Y2K test, but programs fail

While federal agencies have raised their combined Y2K grade point average to a B-, the key programs they operate have yet to pass Y2K muster, the top Year 2000 watchdog in Congress announced Tuesday.

Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, gave every agency except the Agency for International Development a passing grade in his latest report card. Fourteen of 24 agencies evaluated received grades of A or A-, and the overall government grade of B- was the highest Horn has issued yet.

Several agencies' grades showed marked improvement since Horn's last grades were issued in February. The State Department, for example, went from an F to an A-. But only two of 43 high-impact federal programs the subcommittee's staff evaluated are fully Y2K compliant, Horn said.

Such programs are more important to the public than agency computer systems, Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., said. "Within the agencies, those services are not compliant at this point," Morella said. "We need to continue with the goading to make sure these critically important services are attended to."

Of the 43 federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget has identified as "high impact," only the Social Security system and the operations of the National Weather Service are fully Y2K ready. In most of the high-impact programs, federal agencies rely heavily on state and local governments or private contractors to deliver services. A program isn't considered Y2K-compliant until all of its partners have tested their systems and developed contingency plans.

The subcommittee's eighth Y2K grading went a step further than past progress reports, introducing new criteria that look at agencies' progress beyond mission-critical systems and embedded chips. The new grades take into account such factors as contingency plans, verification of compliance, independent audits of Y2K readiness, telecommunications systems and embedded systems, which contain microprocessor chips that may or may not use date-related calculations.

As a result, some agencies slid backwards on the grading scale. The Justice Department, for example, went from a B to a C because it has not yet begun working on any of the new criteria. NASA, the Energy Department and the Treasury Department also lost ground in the new report.

Nevertheless, Horn was optimistic about agencies' progress in tackling the Y2K bug. "I am not a scaremonger. [Agencies are] on track and improving all the time," he said.

Horn's Grades for Agencies' Year 2000 Efforts
June 15, 1999