🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello,

Received a very detailed report from District 4 Commissioner Harris. 
This was
in response to a telephone call I put in to them.  

-----------Begin Letter


                         Management Information Services
           ...serving those who serve the citizens of Pinellas County

Alfred J. Leiser                             Pinellas County, Florida
  DIRECTOR                                           315 Court Street
                                            Clearwater, Florida 33756
                                                       (813) 464-3395

                                                       May 6, 1998
Mr. Arthur Bouchard
Re:  Year 2000 Conversion

Dear Mr. Bouchard,

This will respond to your request through Commissioner Calvin D. 
Harris for an inventory and cost analyst of the Year 2000 conversion 
activities of the MIS Department on behalf of the departments and 
agencies of County Government. 

To provide you with insight into our assessment of the Year 2000
coversion effort I prepared the following which defines and sizes the
problem from our perspective, and summarizes our plan to successfully
complete the date conversion effort in advance of the new millennium.

The Year 2000 Problem

To conserve expensive disk storage and real memory the standard date
format used in most computer system and application software consists
of six (6) digits expressed as MM/DD/YY.  The two digit year is used 
in calculations to compute time periods, start/ending dates, sorts,
comparisons and the like.  The two digit year will be reset to 00 in 
the year 2000 which will be interpreted as 1900.  Thus, a person born 
in 1960 will be 39 in 1999, and -40 in the year 2000, and a sort by
date order of the years 1965, 1905, 2002 will become 02, 05, 65.  This
has obvious implications for all software programs which reference to
use dates for calculations which would include for County Government
programs computing bond reconciliations, calendaring, sentencing, 
fines/forfeitures, tax notices, payroll, interest calculations,
billing/invoicing, licensing/permitting, inventory, subpoenas/warrants,
etc. to name a few.  If we are to continue business beyond the century
change it is necessary that we convert all data fields to accommodate 
a four (4) digit year, and this extraordinary effort must be completed 
in advance of rollover while all systems remain operational.

The impact of the year 2000 conversion effort is spread across all of
our customer application areas.  These customers depend on thousandds
of application production programs containing an estimated 2.5 million
lines of code.  Each line of code in each application, each data entry
screen and each data file must be reviewed to identify, and wherever
necessary to correct all data references and occurrences, and the 
accuracy of all calculations involving date data must be verified.   
Within the industry, estimates of the cost of the conversion effort
ranged from $0.45 to $1.95 or more per line of code.  In our 
discussions of the magnitude of this project with our customers and 
members of the Data Processing Board, we have described an effort 
begun in early 1996 which has and will continue to involve one-half 
to two-thirds of our 48 member development staff through July, 1999 
at an estimated staff cost of $1.4 million per year, and an estimated 
contract programmer cost of $400,000 per year.

We spent the first year completing an assessment of the extent of the
problem, inventorying and cross referencing the applications, 
libraries, files, etc., and defining relationships between specific 
systems to determine the modifications required.  Our analyses of the
conversion effort identified a number of tasks (such as identification,
removal and replacement of date routines with a single department
routine) which could be structured to permit assignment to relatively
inexperienced staff and contract personnel.  We assigned to our senior
staff more complex tasks such as the preparation of conversion programs,
expansion of file formats, conduct of logic changes, testing and
verification activities, etc..  We entered into a multi-year contract 
with C. W Costello and Associates to provide contract programming 
personnel on an as needed basis to assist our staff through completion
of the project.

To date we have devoted 34,640 staff and contract programmer hours to
this project.  We have completed conversion of 80-90% of the on-line
or batch systems in the major application areas of County Administrator,
Utilities, Tax Collector, Clerk of Court-Accounts Receivable, Probate
and the ancillary areas of Sheriff Inmate Accounting and R&I, Human
Rights, Payroll/Personnel, Housing Authority, interfaces with the
Appraiser and Elections Supervisor, etc.  Of the total hours to date,
6,750 were in the Adult Criminal Division of the Justice Information 
System.  During the last year of this project most of our efforts will
be directed at converting the Justice System.  To convert the Adult
and Juvenile Criminal, Civil, and Traffic Court Divisions will require
and estimated 25,000 hours of staff and contract programmer effort 
through to the July, 1999 completion target date.

Thank you for your interest in this regard.
 
                                     Cordially,

                                     -signed-

                                     Edward L. Lachman
                                     Administrative Manager

cc:  Commissioner Calvin D. Harris

----------------------------End of Letter

Although I am greatful for such a detailed report and excellant
cooperation from Commissioner Harris and his staff, I have to wonder:
2.5 million lines of code by July, 99 and no mention of embedded
systems...hmmm.

-Art-