Feds Lose Billions on Y2K

Wired News Report
5:30 p.m. 3.May.99.PDT

Congressional auditors have found that federal agencies have lost track of the billions of dollars they requested to rid their computers of Y2K glitches.

Slipshod accounting is commonplace, says a report released Monday by the US General Accounting Office. Of the 24 largest federal agencies, only seven kept track of how much they spent on Y2K fixes over the last three years.

Costs are skyrocketing. "Estimated costs of Y2K activities for the 2000 fiscal year have increased by over 700 percent during the last year," the report said. The 2000 fiscal year begins 1 October 1999, and the estimated total repair cost for the largest agencies is now US$7.5 billion.

Government officials have also spent hundreds of millions of dollars designated for Y2K repairs on non-urgent and unrelated projects, the GAO said.

The heads of the Treasury, State, and Justice departments had claimed that they needed "emergency funds" to finish computer repairs in time.

"Last fall, the administration was adamant that federal agencies would not be ready for 2000 without an emergency cash infusion for Y2K readiness," House Majority Leader Dick Armey said in a statement. "But their spending patterns don't match their rhetoric."

Since June, Armey has been claiming that the White House has not been taking Y2K seriously.

"Not only are the agencies that the president is tracking failing -- but what about the federal departments or agencies that [the president] is not tracking, such as the Postal Service?" his newsletter from last summer said.