2000.01.07 Y2K bug bites 22 counties in Arkansas

"A week into the new year and some of the state's smaller counties are finding out that their computers are not ready for the new millennium. And it could affect how hundreds of people are paid within the next few weeks.

"Beverly Paladino says there are some computer problems at the Conway County courthouse. Clerks are working with software designed by the Unversity of Arkansas. In order to work now they've turned back the computer calendar to December 31, 1999. That's because it won't work in the year 2000.

"Conway County is not alone. They are part of the County Management Information Systems Association. 22 counties have the same system. All report some type of problem they hope to have fixed in time for payroll. And they've been assured by their vendor that they'll be "ready to go."

More: http://www.kark.com/story5x.html

-- Philip Bogdonoff (pbogdonoff@y2kcenter.org), January 07, 2000

Answers

The news coverage last night also informed that a Dallas based company, Relational Management Services, Inc. (RMS), was hired to fix this old Cobol code. County Association was informed they were Y2KOK. There is one RMS person in the state and to quote him, "lots of data in a lot of different places"..."massive." Website for RMS has a regional map for their service region (about half of the U.S.)

Contingency plan is to issue checks by hand.

-- Lisa (lisadawn@yahoo.com), January 07, 2000.