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US territories to get $22M for Y2K preparations
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Posted on Jul 19 1999
The Clinton Administration will allocate $22.2 million in new federal funding for US territories and the freely associated states (FAS) to assist them in upgrading their government computer systems to make them Y2K compliant, an insular official announced yesterday.
Danny Aranza, acting director of the Office of Insular Affairs or OIA, said the computer upgrading programs of these territories will be funded by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Aranza said the budget office is awaiting Congress’ approval of its request to reprogram funds for this purpose.
He said the budget office will fund only the computer systems that were originally installed through federal grants.
“OIA will notify each of the island’s leaders about the specific of their grants in about two weeks once Congress has approved OMB’s request,” Aranza said in a press release.
Y2K, also known as “millennium bug,” refers to the destruction of files and data stored in computers that don’t recognize year 2000.
Aranza said the federal government does not fund the computer upgrading projects in 50 states.
However, he said, OIA appealed to the Administration on behalf of insular territories and FAS, which he said deserve “special treatment because of their depressed economies.”
“The so-called Y2K bug poses a serious threat to the ability of these islands to function effectively,” Aranza added.
The estimates on the computer upgrading costs were done by the USDA’s Graduate School.
Aranza said computer experts hired by the institution visited the governments of the islands and assisted local agencies in identifying hardware and software that are likely to fail on the eve of Jan. 1, 2000.
