Office of Governor Gary Locke
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 2, 1999
Contact:  Dave Workman, Washington State Year 2000 Office, 360-586-4280

Washington passes big test as Y2K arrives with start of new fiscal year

OLYMPIA — Thanks to several years of state government work on Year 2000 technology transition, millions of dollars' worth of payment checks went out on schedule today to thousands of businesses that supply services to state government and to recipients of state government benefits.

Overnight, Washington state government completed the transition into Fiscal Year 2000.

That means state government's accounting and financial systems already are operating in the new millennium. Hard work paid off, because these systems weren't affected by the arrival of "00" in computer date fields.

The fiscal year transition was an important milestone in Washington's Y2K preparedness efforts, said Sadie Rodriguez Hawkins, assistant director of the state's Office of Financial Management.

"We're now receiving the dividends from the hard work that state agencies have done to get our mission-critical computer systems ready for the Year 2000 date change," she said. "There is more work to be done, but today we passed a crucial milestone."

On an average day, the state's central accounting system makes 4,100 vendor payments valued at more than $12 million to businesses across the state for supplies and services provided to state agencies and the public.

Contract vendors provide a wide array of services to state agencies and Washington citizens, such as electricity, telephone service, heating for public facilities, highway repair and construction, office supplies and equipment.

Other vendors provide the supplies that public agencies need to operate, such food and medicine for state hospitals, prisons and treatment facilities, fuel, tires and parts for public safety and public service vehicles, building materials, tools and safety clothing for workers.

State government also makes unemployment insurance payments to workers who have lost their jobs, payments to injured workers, payroll to state employees, and public assistance benefit payments.


Here are a few examples of critical computer systems that made the smooth transition to Fiscal Year 2000:

- Agency Financial Reporting System (AFRS), which generates millions of dollars' worth of vendor payments each day to thousands of vendors. AFRS collects accounting information on expenses and income from all state agencies to maintain the state's books and generate performance and monitoring reports.

- Labor and Industries pension benefit payment system, which pays pensions to 16,500 permanently disabled workers, survivors of workplace fatality victims and survivors of deceased pensioners. The typical pensioner receives about $1,900 a month.
Food Stamp accounting system (Department of Social and Health Services), which tracks payments for 152,000 households receiving food coupons.

- Support enforcement management system, which collects more than $42 million of child support payments each month for more than 431,000 children served by the Department of Social and Health Services.

In 1995, the state established a centralized program to coordinate state agencies' efforts to get the state's technology ready for the Year 2000 transition. The state systematically evaluated its critical systems to identify date-sensitive systems that could be interrupted by the change of date fields from "99" to "00." The state set priorities for correcting identified problems at a reasonable cost; repaired or replaced critical systems likely to be interrupted; tested the corrected systems; and hired independent assessors to conduct an impartial review of the critical state systems.

For more information about state government readiness, as well as other information about Y2K technology issues, see the state's "Year 2000 and You" site on the World Wide Web: http://access.wa.gov/2000/

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