Legislature(1997 - 1998)
04/29/1998 09:20 AM Senate FIN
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
MINUTES SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE 29 April, 1998 9:20 a.m. TAPES SFC 98 # 146, Side A (000-592) Side B (592-553) CALL TO ORDER Senator Bert Sharp, Co-Chair, convened the meeting at approximately 9:20 a.m. PRESENT In addition to Co-Chair Sharp, Senators Donley, Torgerson, Adams and Phillips were present when the meeting was convened. Senators Pearce and Parnell arrived shortly thereafter. Also Attending: ANNALEE MCCONNELL, Director, Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Governor; KAREN PERKINS, Director, Year 2000 Project; MARK BADGER, Ph.D., Chief Technical Officer/Director, Information Technology Group, Department of Administration; BILL MCCAULEY, Manager, Data Processing, Legislative Administrative Services, Legislative Affairs Agency; WENDY REDMOND, Vice President, University Relations, University of Alaska; ANN RINGSTAD, University of Alaska-Fairbanks; MIKE CIRI, University of Alaska-Southeast; TIM BANAZAK, DOA; CHRIS CHRISTENSEN, Staff Council, Office of the Administrative Director, Alaska Court System; MIKE GREANY, Director, Division of Legislative Finance; FRED FISHER, Fiscal Analyst, DLF; and aides to committee members and other members of the Legislature. Via Teleconference: From Fairbanks: STEVE SMITH, University of Alaska; MARY LOU BARTON, U of A. SUMMARY INFORMATION Co-Chair Sharp announced the schedule for the meeting was to hear an overview on the Year 2000 Project. He noted that the three branches of state government would be giving presentations as well as the University. Then if time allowed, the committee would take up SB 350. Co-Chair Sharp invited ANNALEE MCCONNELL, Director of the Office of Management and Budget to come to the table and speak to the issue of the Year 2000 Project. Her presentation was as follows: "With me is Karen Perkins, who is the person referred to in the overview memo we sent you the other day. This is the contract - as we explained in the memo, we have hired UNISYS to provide some contractual management services for us. And Karen Perkins is the person on board. She was previously with the City of Chicago's Y2K Project working there for UNISYS as well." "Appreciate the chance to go through this with you. We have had a discussion with the Information Technology Committee a couple months ago about the Y2K situation, where we are with it in the state. A lot has happened since that briefing that we did and we've tried to summarize in fairly short form for you in that memo, the activities that are underway. But it is I think as you can get a sense from just looking at the list, a considerable amount that we are taking on as a challenge now to get ourselves in readiness for the year 2000." "At the time that we had the earlier conversations with the Information Technology Committee, we did not yet have the kind of detail work-ups from departments about what were their mission critical systems and which ones were already in progress for being corrected for the year 2000. We've got a lot of that work under way now. But it's clear, not only from what we're experiencing but also from what every other business and government around the world is experiencing now that we've got to step up our efforts considerably" "We have worked with the inter-branch task force and there are some folks here who've helped us with that both in the legislative branches - legislative, court system branches as well as the University. And what we're doing is pooling our efforts in all the places we think that can help us as far as saving time, effort and money. There are still some areas that of course we'll all take on individually in the branches to be responsible for actually getting year 2000 problems corrected. And we're not suggesting that we blend that responsibility just as in the appropriation that we're recommending to you, we think if probably makes most sense just do separate appropriations for the individual branches. But in spite of that, we will be doing a tremendous amount of coordinated work in things like clearing houses, dealing with legal and liability issues, and so forth. And everybody seems quite interested in capitalizing on that inter-branch effort." "Some of the questions that we had gotten after receiving the memo were, can we be a little more specific about the types of things that we would need to be doing between now and when we see you all again next session. And we've listed out here in the handout we just passed out, some more specific examples of that. This rather informal piece that I just had distributed to you was an e-mail that I just got this morning. We tried to get a couple of other pieces of information for you so you could get a sense of the magnitude of all of this. And it's a message about what was done in Oregon for the Department of Corrections there and what it cost them to so their initial assessment and then their cost estimates for remediation. And these are about a year old. So we need to keep that in mind." "We have recognized that this is a little bit of an unusual request in the sense that we are opening the door to a very large effort. And at this point, it's very hard to say exactly what we will need in the way of specific contracts to do the fixes that are outlined. We're still planning to do as much of it as we possibly can within existing staff resources. But clearly the volume of work to be dealt with and also the level of technical expertise for much of this will require considerable amount of contractual work. And we want to be sure that the State Of Alaska is not left behind as all the governments and businesses around the world are scrambling to tie up major Y2K firms with long- term contracts and big mega-contracts as we mentioned in the memo." "We have I think some suggestions for you maybe in terms of how we could be sure that you stay posted on all of this. We are recommending that we provide, and I think it would actually be helpful to do this from the task force so that all branches are reporting in, but my recommendation is specifically from the executive branch, that we provide a report to you on September 1 and again on about - say about December 1 or first of January so that we could give you some progress reports along the way on both the activities that are under - they're in progress and planned for the next couple of months as well as the expenditures that have been made, the kinds of contracts we've entered into so that you have a good sense of both the dollar and the activity progress as we go through this interim period. And then by the time you're back next year, we'll have a lot more detailed cost information for consideration in the next legislative session." "Since I'm not sure how much you've had a chance to review the memo, I don't want go over all of that again unless you just as soon I do an overview. Otherwise I'd be happy to take questions. But your preference on that." Co-Chair Sharp wanted to hold his own questions until he had heard from all the speakers. Senator Phillips asked if the request was for a total of $16 million. Ms. McConnell replied that was for all the branches. However, she added it would not be the full cost to deal with Y2K and she included some examples in the memo so the Legislature could get a sense of how much other private and public sectors were finding needed to be spent. She didn't think it made sense to ask for an amount beyond what they felt would need to enter into contracts at this point. Timing would be of the essence in this whole effort, she warned. Senator Phillips understood the cost in the United States alone would be approximately $50 billion to make the conversions. Ms. McConnell said that was the federal government's estimate of just their activity. She had seen some estimates for worldwide costs that were up into the trillions of dollars. Co-Chair Sharp said it didn't speak well for the scientific advancement of computers. Ms. McConnell spoke about the space and expense needed for storage of two digit versus four digit year fields and added that the only consolation was that the year 3000 problem would be solved at the same time. Co-Chair Sharp referred to his experience working with Cobalt systems and understanding the need to build loops and use as many abbreviations as possible. Senator Phillips turned to a list of potential health and safety problems on page two of the memo and pointed out the item referring to microchips in trucks. He wanted an explanation of how and why that would effect health and safety. KAREN PERKINS, Director of the Year 2000 Project responded that she thought this would apply to highly technical vehicles. She gave ambulances as an example. Ms. McConnell added that the private sector could be affected by its use of specialized vehicles and heavy equipment on the North Slope for instance. She said this could hamper health and safety if it caused brakes to not work properly. She stressed there were so many electronics in vehicles there was a lot of concern about safety in vehicles generally whether they would be operating properly. While it wasn't an area the State Of Alaska specifically needed to correct, it did need to have a plan to ensure safety for certain areas such as airport or fire safety equipment that could be compromised. There were no more questions at this point. Ms. McConnell told the co-chair that she needed to leave to attend another meeting downstairs, but could return if any questions came up. Co-Chair Sharp offered MARK BADGER the Chief Technical Officer and Director of the Information Technology Group in the Department of Administration an opportunity to comment. He made a brief statement as follows: "Thank you Mr. Chairman, if there are no questions I won't go into anything other than that with the central services there are - there's some good news in that the problems has been under - been being addressed for the last two years. So we have the central computer and the telephone switches a fairly good situation. But that's just a tiny fraction of what the state has in total. One of the areas that as an example of areas that we need to look at is the e-mail, which is become a major part of business today particularly in Alaska where distances are so far and telephone calls aren't the first mode of communication as much any more. There is a distributed infrastructure meaning that there are computers located all over the state that we have a concern over whether they have 2000 compliance central processing unit. And that's an example of the area that we're - that Ms. Perkins is hoping to flush out our approach to it. But it's just an example of the kind of thorny question this all is because there are about 300 e-mail post offices scattered around the state." Senator Parnell wanted to touch base with Ms. McConnell before she left for her meeting. He and she had discussed the request and one of the things the senator had brought up had to do with accountability for spending the $15.98 million plus whatever else would be asked for. His reason for the concern was that the Legislature didn't want to write a blank check for new computer equipment statewide just because people wanted new equipment. He asked what kind of controls Ms. McConnell could suggest to ensure accountability. Ms. McConnell responded saying the suggestion made after meeting with the task force was that each branch be appropriated its own amount. She was not proposing that OMB would be accountable for the Legislature's or the University's expenditures. She thought there were a couple constraints that would force what Senator Parnell was suggesting. The shear magnitude of the problem was forcing them to evaluate and determine which were the most mission-critical systems. The remediation done must be focused on those mission-critical systems she stressed. For instance, a minor data base that was in a department where, if push came to shove, the procedure could be done manually, was not as mission critical as would be emergency communications and things that related directly to the State's ability to pay its vendors and receive revenue. She repeated her suggestion of providing updated reports to the Legislature in September and January. Senator Parnell felt that was an appropriate approach but felt that the Legislature needed an understanding of what the mission-critical systems were up-front. He wanted to have a discussion of approximately how much of the funds would go for mission critical systems and how much would go for unanticipated things that would arise. He also wanted to have measures for the $16 million. While he thought Ms. McConnell was on the right track, he wanted more clearly defined expectations up-front about where the money would go. Ms. McConnell responded that her intention for money that went to the Executive Branch through OMB would be to expend the monies only on mission-critical systems. Some of the coordination and clearing house services provided by the State would also benefit some of the non-mission-critical systems she shared. She gave an example saying they would need to set up a clearinghouse for state agencies to check in to find out if a particular computer was Y2K compliant. Her interest was to be sure that any department that did not have a Y2K compliant computer in a mission-critical activity got the money to take care of that. That same clearinghouse would be available on the Internet and any other state agency could check that list to see if their equipment was compatible, although these appropriations would not be available to replace those computers used for a non-mission- critical service. Other examples where non-mission-critical services could benefit were related to the identification of risk management and liability issues. Again, while the identified mission-critical systems would receive the funding, the same complied general information could be used to determine compatible systems in non-mission-critical applications. She stated that actual purchase of hardware and software and testing would only be done on mission- critical systems. Co-Chair Sharp asked if Ms. Perkins believed there would be sufficient expertise to hire, due to the late date of Alaska's involvement in trying to solve the Y2K problem. Or would the State be required to attempt all the work in- house? Ms. Perkins replied that she knew her company and others were still advertising their services, which was one good sign. The other thing she knew was that prices were going up, so the sooner the State secured a contract, the better. In many cases in her company, most of the resources had already been committed. Therefore, it was difficult for her to say the State would have the resources it would need. Co-Chair Sharp said one of his concerns, was that most of the assessment stage still lay ahead. He remembered an earlier subcommittee meeting where the person who was heading up the project was getting ready to retire. He also spoke of the difficulty in getting all the departments involved in assessing their needs. He asked Ms. McConnell if there was any improvement in working with the departments. He felt the issue was critical and the departments needed to take action. He said based on the timeline, he thought it was already too late to get everything done. Ms. McConnell responded there had been a striking improvement. Her office had done several things to work on that, from directing more attention at the cabinet level and through the Y2K Coordinators Group consisting of all the agencies. She said all the agencies had submitted a list of their mission-critical systems and many of them had done a lot of work since those early conversations on the assessment phase. As she indicated in the memo, there were many areas where the departments were already in the remediation, or even in some cases, the testing phase. She had received back from departments the status on all of their mission-critical systems showing where they were in assessment, remediation and testing and whether they knew what the schedule was likely to be. Ms. McConnell continued saying her office was in the process of whittling the list down. This was because what was considered mission-critical to an individual department might not rise to the level of being mission-critical on the statewide level. Co-Chair Sharp said that was one of his questions, that departments' version of mission-critical was being checked against what was truly mission-critical. Ms. McConnell said while that process wasn't yet completed, they did have most of the data needed to identify the smaller group of mission-critical systems. She qualified that there may be an activity that was essential to the mission of a department in order to fulfill a statutory requirement, but that didn't necessarily fit into the larger scheme of life safety matters. She concluded there had been a lot of progress made. As included in the memo, there were at least half a dozen specialized groups that were working in detail in different areas like risk management and emergency communications. She indicated there were a number of meetings scheduled even now at the end of session, because even though departments were busy at this time of year, it was felt that the matter couldn't wait. Co-Chair Sharp referred to the projections included in the memo where the amounts of money were listed. He wanted to know if that was intended to just get through the remainder of the calendar year until the Legislature reconvened. Was this appropriation going to cover any of the major replacement costs, or just get the process to the testing stage, he asked? Ms. McConnell responded that the project was in different phases in different areas. There would not be a wait for all statewide assessments to be completed before remediation would begin in some areas. In fact, she told the committee, a lot of the remediation was already underway. She gave an example of a system where remediation had already begun. The ACCESS statewide accounting system was scheduled for completion by the end of the year. Even within departments such as the Department of Corrections where they were still in the assessment phase for their security systems, they were in the remedial stage for some of their building facilities and computer systems. Therefore the project would be in different stages throughout state agencies as they went through the entire process. So some of the money might well be used for remediation if the agency was ready but didn't have resources within their own budget, she stated. There was also some testing going on now, she told the committee. Ms. McConnell advised that the other important area was that of contingency planning, which was engaged by businesses and other government entities. This would cover back-up planning for cases where a particular system could not be fixed in time. Co-Chair Sharp questioned if some of the departments that had gotten a jump-start on the process may well be completed by the next Legislative session and subsequent request for additional funding. Ms. McConnell affirmed that, but qualified that she was speaking only for the Executive Branch not for the University or other branches. She felt that the Legislature situation might well be different because of the nature of what that request might cover. Co-Chair Sharp noted that this was an unusual problem with an unusual fix. He could appreciate why the recommendation was made to put all the funds into the Executive Branch under OMB, but that was an area where there was no expertise to begin with where some of the other areas did have the necessary expertise. Ms. McConnell said there were a couple of reasons for the request to channel the money through OMB. One of the reasons was that there was expertise within some of the departments for fixing some of their internal systems. Those agencies would proceed, she told the committee. She made it very clear to the cabinet that with anything they already had underway, they needed to proceed. The reason for bringing the funds through OMB was twofold, she said. One, they needed to be sure that scarce resources did not go to low-priority fixes, which was similar to the way ADA projects had been handled, she explained. The other reason was to increase the visibility of the activity and make it clear that it was getting high level attention, both from a budget standpoint and also from a programmatic standpoint. She spoke further about the plan for channeling funds through OMB and the importance of proceeding in that manner. Mark Badger joined the discussion on the plan for a central computing environment saying that it was important for agency personnel to use as customers rather than a forced diet. He guessed that the work done to bring the matter to the agencies' attention was similar to challenges faced by the Legislature when trying to grapple the entire state, where there were so many dispersed centers of specialty. Having the funds channel through OMB gave his group a place to support through a test environment, but was still a channel area that would keep it focused so agencies recognize the matter was a priority. His group had tried to force out the responsibilities to the agencies, but there is a limit to what could be done from the central information technology shop, when operating as a customer-based organization. There being no further discussion, Co-Chair Sharp moved to the University system and noted WENDY REDMOND, Vice President of University Relations, and MIKE CIRI Manager of the Computer System for the University of Alaska-Southeast, were available to speak to the issue. Steve Smith from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks had been listening to the meeting via teleconference from Fairbanks, but needed to hang up due to another commitment. Ms. Redmond began the presentation and spoke as follows: "I'll ask Mike to talk about what we've done in the University. I'll just tell you that we are quite a bit ahead of the game and probably have already expended half of what we need in total. That is probably in the $8-10 million range already on a conversion to a new banner computer system that we've been undergoing for the last four years. So we were able to get quite a bit ahead of it. We have now I think about a total of $8 million we anticipate in cost over the next few years to conclude our conversion." Mr. Ciri joined the conversation and testified as follows: "The University over the last several years has been doing a conversion of their centralized human resources system, payroll system, the financial systems, the student information systems, and that process is in its final form. And as of this spring, we've just completed a replacement of the library systems and that really is the - is the bulk of the large central data processing aspects of the University. What our main focus is now when we look at year 2000 assessment and remediation [we] are looking at the other systems, the network, the data communication systems, our imbedded systems with elevators, environmental control systems - some of the things that were mentioned before - our voice systems for telephone access." "As Wendy pointed out, the bulk of the big work I would say has been done. What remains now is carrying that out to the distributed campuses." Ms. Redmond resumed speaking: "And Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we sort of just - you know these things keep popping up and I'd - I'm certainly not an expert in this field and so it's amazing to me that there isn't somebody that could have anticipated this a long time ago. I still don't quite get it. But, one of the big areas that we now have facing us has to do in the areas of research. And so much of the research that's been done in many of our institutes has been done on - not on the big mainframes, but on small computers. And with you know, decades of data that needs - could all crash so there has to be a lot of work done with those individuals - individual researchers to try to protect and save that data and make some conversions." Co-Chair Sharp asked if they had reached the test phase yet. Mr. Ciri replied that in the Southeastern region that he was in charge of, they had done a detailed inventory of all the computing systems, both large and small, both mission critical and non-mission critical. They had begun the testing phase of those systems, he said. Largely the process to date had focused on first testing the hardware, then the software associated and then finally, the institutional data. They were about three-quarters of the way through testing the hardware, which will enable them to determine the breadth of the problem and what would need to be replaced, he explained. Mr. Ciri added they were also in the process of working with venders such as Microsoft, to assess which products already is year 2000 compliant, and which will not be. In terms of assessing the data, that was part of what needed to be done in the next couple of years. Senator Parnell asked if the university had a written plan on how it would spend the $4 million allocated to them. Ms. Redmond said a plan had been written up. She had intended to bring it with her to this meeting but was unable to pull it off her computer. She corrected the total figure needed by the university, saying they would actually need $8.6 million. The $4 million in this request was only part of the total they would need. Senator Parnell requested a written copy of the plan for the committee once it was available. Mr. Ciri added he had had a conversation with Mr. Smith, who drafted the plan, and could perhaps relay some of that discussion. Co-Chair Sharp asked if Mr. Smith was back on teleconference. MARY LO BARTON, who was listening from the Fairbanks teleconference location replied Mr. Smith was not available, that he had to leave for another appointment. Co-Chair Sharp called upon Ms. Barton to speak to the issue. Ms. Barton stated that she had no expertise in the matter and Mr. Ciri was better suited to address the matter. Mr. Ciri told the committee how, in terms of gathering data and pulling together information as a part of the process, they originally had a fairly detailed breakdown of how they would spend the $8.6 million. In his conversation with Mr. Smith last week about how they would scale down to meet the $4 million fund, they discussed what would be prioritized. Their main emphasis recently has been to assess their imbedded systems such as elevators and the environmental control systems. He said these systems were the biggest unknown and also the scariest because they affected health and safety. Therefore, the first priority was to address the imbedded systems on all the campuses. After that the network and voice systems would be the next priority. Senator Parnell asked about the payroll system. Mr. Ciri said their payroll was done within a system in the University of Alaska. He said the payroll system itself had already been replaced and was Year 2000 compliant. The only payroll or human resources issues left to address were assessing the distributed components. In other words, if there were mission critical spreadsheets or databases maintained by individual departments that were not a part of the central system, those needed to be located and identified. A contingency plan needed to be identified to deal with them, he added. Co-Chair Sharp wanted to know if that related to cost accounting for federal grants and other funding sources. Mr. Ciri replied that was exactly the issue. Ms. Redmond pointed out one example was the Geophysical Institute, which operated somewhat autonomously relative to payroll. Those programs needed to be brought into the project. That concluded the discussion on the University. The committee addressed the Alaska Court System and Co-Chair Sharp noted the presence of CHRIS CHRISTENSEN, General Council, and STEPHANIE COLE, Administrative Director for the Court System. Mr. Christensen came to the table, introduced himself and gave his presentation as follows: "Mr. Chairman, as you know the judiciary was the last of the three branches to computerize. We've always been a number of years behind the curve with respect to computerization. That has actually proved to be a tremendous advantage when we try to fix this particular problem. Over the last four years the Legislature has made several capital appropriations for us to design an integrated case management system and to obtain some of the hardware to operate that system. And as we have been designing this and purchasing items over the last couple of years, we have made sure they're Year 2000 compliant." "I guess the long and the short of it is what we are asking for now is only about $90,000, half of which would be for software, the other half for hardware and contractual services to actually make our computer systems fully Year 2000 compliant." "This $90,000 figure does not include imbedded systems. We are still in the process of assessing that. We occupy 59 court facilities around the state, 44 of them are privately owned. So the landlords will be responsible for imbedded systems. So the 15 that are state-owned, six are administered by us and nine are administered by DOT [the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities]. If we are only responsible for those six, I expect the embedded system number to also be relatively small. Obviously, the one remaining question is who is going to handle the imbedded systems in the nine buildings, which are administered for us by DOT. That's the sort of thing that has a way of falling through the cracks." Senator Parnell questioned that the $90,000 request did not include testing the elevators in the court building in Anchorage or security systems for imbedded technology. He asked if they had done anything with the imbedded technology and what was the plan. Mr. Christensen responded that his understanding was that in-house assessments were being attempted in the six buildings the court system administered. They had not yet determined. He believed a small percentage of the contractual services requested in the $80,000 allocation would go toward assessment of some of the imbedded systems. Senator Parnell clarified that the computer hardware and software was mostly Y2K compliant, and that it was the imbedded technology that they really didn't know about. Mr. Christensen responded that they estimated with $90,000 all the desktop computers and servers will be made Year 2000 compliant. It was the imbedded systems they were unsure about, but that they would have a better idea within the next few months, he estimated. He felt that by the next Legislative session, they would have an idea of the cost to fix the imbedded systems. Hopefully they would have worked things out with DOT with regard to the nine buildings administered by DOT to see who would take responsibility for making them Year 2000 compliant, he added. There were no further questions regarding the Alaska Court System. Co-Chair Sharp called upon BILL MCCAULEY, Data Processing Manager for the Legislative Affairs Agency, to give a presentation on the Legislative branch's progress. Mr. McCauley spoke as follows: "In summary, we've already made our budget request to address our major Y2K issue. And that is part of a plan to get our systems off the mainframe. We know that most of our systems are not Y2K compliant. So, we've had a process - we've been for a number of years, underway trying to get off the mainframe. Last year, we contracted with [undecipherable] Corporation who came in a laid the groundwork and wrote a report and recommendation to go ahead and complete that move off the mainframe." "That is the basis of our $1.89 million request. And that is to remove mainframe applications and bring it down to the LAN. In the process, we will take care of the Y2K issue in that conversion. Also in our request is to address our network service, our file servers and some of our desktops. We've done some inventory and we know that many of our desktops are not Y2K compliant. And we're going - in our request we want to replace some of those. We'll have to replace some next year." Senator Pearce pointed out that she came to the Legislature in 1985 and since then every computer in the building had been replaced. She questioned that even computers built after 1985 were not compliant. Mr. McCauley replied that there were newer computers than 1985 that were not compliant. Senator Pearce began to wonder about the major computer companies. She understood that electronics built in the 1960's and 1970's using old chips might need to be fixed. But she felt that new equipment shouldn't have this problem. Mr. McCauley responded that while computers in her office may be newer, others, such as those in Legal Services had been tested and found to not be Year 2000 compliant. Senator Pearce made further comments about the age of the legislative computers and her belief that they should be compliant. Senator Parnell passed along a criticism he had heard in reference to the Y2K budget request. Knowing that the goal was to bring the legislative computers off the mainframe, there was some belief that this budget request was just another attempt at meeting that goal, rather than strictly to make the system Year 2000 compliant. He asked if the two projects were linked or was part of the request intended to cover the mainframe issue. Mr. McCauley replied that he looked at the project as part of the conversion off the mainframe. He spoke of a commitment made to the Legislative Council about five years ago to be off the mainframe by 1999. He said they would not be able to meet that deadline. However, he thought with this test, they may be off the mainframe by the year 2000. The Y2K issue actually gave them a firmer deadline than they had before, he acknowledged. Senator Parnell asked if constituents would not have access to the legislative information systems, BASIS and Alexys, because of the Year 2000 problem if things just continued on as they were. Tape #146 Side B, 10:05 a.m. Mr. McCauley responded there would be problems with the bill status system and most of the mainframe systems. He said his staff was very familiar with those systems because they wrote them. He gave an example, in their attempts to get off the mainframe they replicated the bill status databases on the LAN, which allowed the public access to this information through the Internet. Through this conversion, they went ahead and made the LAN based system Year 2000 compliant. They expanded and built in year fields to accommodate the next century. Therefore, they knew that the LAN based systems were compliant, he stated, however they also knew the mainframe system was not. Senator Phillips commented that regular mail and the telephone could be used. There was no further discussion on the legislative equipment or any of the other statewide systems. Senator Pearce was acting chair while Co-Chair Sharp stepped away. There was some discussion as the direction of the meeting. The committee took a recess from 10:08 - 10:15 a.m. to await the return of Co-Chair Sharp. Co-Chair Sharp noted that SB 350 was scheduled for hearing at this meeting. However, because there was still so much disharmony between the department and the industry, he planned to get together with both parties after this meeting to tell them what they needed to bring back to the committee. He had concerns about a veto by the Governor. He spoke of other committee members' comments during the last meeting on what objectives they would like the bill to accomplish. Therefore, he would lay out those perimeters to the department and the industry and ask them to get something drafted and back to the committee by Friday. He pointed out that Friday was the deadline for Senate bills to be reported out of the Senate Finance Committee unless they were budget bills. He wanted the parties to iron out some of their differences before the bill was brought back to the table. Co-Chair Sharp announced the next scheduled meeting for the next morning at 9:00 a.m. The agenda would include: HB 261; HB 11, which had a new CS from Representative Green and the Division of Motor Vehicles; HB 210, which had been completely reworked; SB 357 would be heard only if he had a chance to work with the Legislative Finance Division to come up with an acceptable CS; and HB 234, which he intended the committee take an up or down vote. The capital budget was postponed and would not be heard until Friday and Saturday. ADJOURNMENT Co-Chair Sharp adjourned the meeting at approximately 10:20 a.m. SFC-98 (14) 4/29/98 am
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