I have been researching our state's preparedness and the results are curious. Pennsylvania as of 8/98 states it is 98% compliant (including testing!!). They have spent about 40 million dollars. The state web page lists other state's cost and we find New York > $250M, California >$500M, Ohio at $60M, Arizona at $100M and so on. Pa is a big, populous state and yet it has become "98% compliant" at a discount rate. Now I wouldn't want to call our dear governor a liar or misinformed, but it sounds a bit too good to be true. (he is a bit like Ken Starr in his mannerisms) Does anyone on this list have any info on how Pennsylvania managed this bit of technical abricadabra. Now if they could only fix the roads - worst in the nation!!

-- R.D. Herring (drherr@erols.com), September 15, 1998

Answers

PA may be in great shape, but check out this little tidbit:

http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/recent/content/wire/upi/mon15/ea9058052742287.upi.html

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), September 15, 1998.

Sounds good, and I'm checking out Gayla's site, but if PA could get it all together as far as state government, what happens when they have to interface with other entities that AREN'T compliant? It's like those little nesting dolls - it just keeps getting "curiouser and curiouser"! Sheesh!

-- Melissa (financed@forbin.com), September 16, 1998.

I'll tell you how PA did this - my brother works for the state. The key is that you minimize the number of systems that you declare to be mission critical - note that they have much to do on "non critical systems". What are these systems? Per my brother, the system from which his department cuts pay checks - the operating system on it is non-Y2K compliant and there is no plans for migration.

I suspect there is a lot of this type of corner-cutting.

-- Anon Ymous (anon@ymous.com), September 16, 1998.

I have a Pennsylvanians and the Year2k link on my webpage. Feel free to point me to sites I can add. Also I was planning to add e-mail addresses of people who are preparing and what area of PA they are in, so that us nuts can communicate. If you want your addy on there, please let me know.

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), September 16, 1998.