Do Maine's problems match those in other states?

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Until recently, I was fairly confident that Maine state government was ahead of the game on y2k repairs. The state's y2k guru -- then newly arrived from Microsoftland in Washington state -- assured me at least 18 months ago that Maine was in good shape, well ahead of other states on remediation. Then late last year the state announced its remediation was done and it was hiring an outside consultant (PriceWaterhouse) to review the work. The first report was released this week and it don't look good. Story in today's Kennebec Journal, the daily in the state capital of Augusta, says PriceWaterhouse found multiple problems with certification and testing. (See http://www.centralmaine.com/061699/news03.shtml -=- the link should be good for at least the next six days)

A close friend at the state Education Department told me last week that he is relearning Cobol becausae he discovered that several programs he uses in his job are not y2k compliant and need fixing -- and there's no one around to fix 'em. And he hasn't used Cobol since college in 1972. His brother works for a major wilderness emergency ambulance service in nrothern Maine -- he told me that same night that his office just got a new scheduling/appointment/billing program *that week* that still used two-digit year fields. The software distributor has promised a new, compliant program "in a few weeks, two months max." One of my wife's coworkers has put off retirement for a year because the Maine State Retirement system keeps messing up her entitlements -- one office worker there told her privately that the newly computerized records "haven't worked right since the beginning of the year; it's this y2k thing." They're resurrecting the old paper files to handle retirement requests. Anyone else have similar reports in Maine or other states?

-- Cash (Cash@andcarry.com), June 16, 1999

Answers

Cash, thanks for the post. I'm split. I don't want to hear this kind of "news", based on my persepective regarding Y2k glitches, but I expect to.

Someone stop the "rollovercoaster", I wanna get off.

Mike ==================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 16, 1999.


Come on Maine! Get on the ball. You're coverin' our norhthern border. Next thing you know the barbarian hords will flood down fron Nova Scotia and replace all the yankee hockey players with Canadians.

Couldn't live with myself.

Sorry folks, lost my mind for a minute there.....

-- MidwestMike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 16, 1999.


Sorry Maine- don't think VT is much better. Our gov just warned allthe businesses that just cause he said not to worry about this y2k thing- didn't mean he didn't want them to worry about it. so maybe they ought to go do something about it. He just didn't want them to think the commies were going to take over and the NWO with the heli's were coming or something. but they really ought to look into doing something now.......

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), June 16, 1999.

Am a dues paying, tax paying civil employee in this state of ME. I'm not too surprised to hear this "news" about our state. Gov. King is in the process of veto-ing 12-20 budget busting bills put forth by our ultra liberal spending state legislators. They've not got a clue about Y2k or anything else that approxiamates common sense or deals in any way with reality. Guess we'd better put up another 10 cord of wood and anticipate hunkerin down for a bit more time than last years ice storm. My friend in the Education Dept. says he's retiring, but wanders if his checks will be in the mail. We may be from Maine, but we're no

-- (cardcarry@cash.com), June 16, 1999.

At least we have alot of land per population, even in the southwestern area. Lay in that extra stuff before anyone else figures it out. BTW cash out of the retirement system IMO. At some point the bond market will be toast and they will not be able to pay you OR cash you out. Its all in bonds. Bonds will burn. Sorry. Lay in extra taters and dig a big garden plot for next year. Compost the heck out of it and let it fallow in this year. The earth worms will do the tilling for you (mostly). Maine will be the last place they come to the rescue (along with places like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, NEvada or New MExico). But come to think of it, that may not be such a bad thing after all.

-- -.. (dit@dot.dash), June 16, 1999.


Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. I'm not exactly encouraged by Hawaii's status (state government), but they haven't gotten to hiring an outside consultant to look at their status...I doubt that they'll dare do that! Reportedly (based on VERY reliable sources) each state department was told to fix Y2K...on their own. If there is central organization, it seems to be in stealth mode!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), June 16, 1999.

Was it Maine that was considering stocking tons of beans and rice in an old army site so they'd have it to dole out next year, or was that Massachusets? I have been wondering where they went with that idea. Anybody know?

-- Shivani Arjuna (S Arjuna@aol.com), June 17, 1999.

It was Maine that wanted to stock the food,but to many people made fun and it was put out for trash.I've sent King some letters on y2k and he always gets very upset.

Darlene

-- Darlene (boomer@tdstelme.net), June 17, 1999.


Darlene, as I've said before, the one advantage of living in Maine in the winter this coming year is that anyone leaving the Bos-Wash metroplex in a major y2k situation is more likely to be heading south rather than north. Sounds like we'll have enough problems to deal with as it is.

Got firewood?

-- Cash (Cash@andcarry.com), June 20, 1999.


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