Year 2000 Computing Challenge

The Year 2000 computer problem threatens to disrupt critical services provided by government and private industry. Key sectors that could be affected range from banking and finance to national defense to public utilities. Despite the progress so far, much work remains at the federal, state, and local levels to avoid disruptions of major services. Remediation must be completed, end-to-end testing performed, and business continuity and contingency plans developed. Similar actions must still be completed by the nation's key sectors. Whether the United States overcomes the Year 2000 challenge will depend largely on the success of federal, state, and local governments as well as the private sector working separately and together to complete these measures. Accordingly, strong leadership and partnerships must be maintained so that the public's needs are met at the turn of the century.

GAO noted that: (1) the public faces the risk that critical services provided by the government and the private sector could be severely disrupted by the year 2000 computing problem; (2) to meet this challenge and monitor individual agency efforts, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed the major departments and agencies to submit quarterly reports on their progress; (3) the federal government's most recent reports show improvement in addressing the year 2000 problem; (4) while much work remains, the federal government has significantly increased its percentage of mission-critical systems that are reported to be year 2000 compliant; (5) while this progress is notable, OMB reported that 10 agencies have mission-critical systems that were not yet compliant; (6) while the overall year 2000 readiness of the government has improved, GAO's reviews of agency year 2000 programs have found uneven progress; (7) some agencies are significantly behind schedule and are at high risk that they will not fix their systems in time; (8) other agencies have made progress, although risks continue and a great deal of work remains; (9) on March 31, 1999, OMB and the Chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion announced that one of the key priorities that federal agencies will be pursuing during the rest of 1999 will be cooperative end-to-end testing to demonstrate the year 2000 readiness of federal programs with states and other partners; (10) on January 26, 1999, OMB called on federal agencies to identify and report on the high-level core business functions that are to be addressed in their business and continuity plans; (11) according to an OMB official, OMB has received almost all of the agency plans and it will report on the plans' status in its next quarterly report; (12) according to information on state year 2000 activities reported to the National Association of State Information Resource Executives as of June 17, 1999, states reported having thousands of mission-critical systems; (13) with respect to completing the implementation phase for these systems: (a) 5 states reported that they had completed between 25 and 49 percent; (b) 13 states reported completing between 50 and 74 percent; and (c) 30 states reported completing 75 percent or more; (14) beyond the risks faced by federal, state, and local governments, the year 2000 also poses a serious challenge to the public infrastructure, key economic sectors, and to other countries; and (15) the Council reported that the nation's key economic sectors had made substantial progress in addressing the year 2000 problem, but that there was still much work to be done.