“No one can predict what might, or might not, happen once the clock ticks past midnight this New Year's Eve. The only certainty is that this January 1 deadline cannot be extended.”
“Today, nearly four weeks after the presidential election, the administrator says he's still unable to ascertain a winner, ... Those charged with implementing this law must carefully consider the implications of their decisions and the precedents they establish.”
“Underlying this dismal [overall] grade is a disturbing slow-down in the government's rate of progress, ... For the quarter ending Feb. 15, the government brought mission-critical systems into compliance at a rate of 9.4%; for the quarter that ended May 15, the rate of progress slowed to 7.9%. This would be discouraging in any context. Less than a year before the March 1999 (government) deadline for Y2K repairs, a reduction in productivity is deeply troubling. This trend must be reversed.”
“We found that 70 percent of these activities are still in progress, ... Yet even with the additional weight placed on these criteria, more than half of the 24 departments and agencies earned 'A's' this quarter. Just as you would not grade college seniors on the same set of criteria expected of college juniors, our expectations for this quarter rose.”
“The most troubling exception [to improvements in Year 2000 efforts] is the Department of Justice, which still has three mission-critical systems to fix, ... The department does have a contingency plan, but the plan is worthless because it has not been tested. We are also concerned about the Internal Revenue Service because the agency is still inventorying its computers at field locations -- the first step in fixing the Y2K problem.”
