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Arthur Gross, the Chief Information Officer at the IRS, keeps warning about IRS computer problems. He is in charge of IRS computer operations. But his superior on the y2k project, John Yost, denies that anything is seriously wrong. No big problem! Count on us!
After reading this, I think that the obvious actor to play John Yost in any Hollywood movie is Jim Carey.
This appreared in COMPUTERWORLD (Oct. 27).
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With about 80 mainframes, 2,000 minicomputers and servers and more than 100,000 desktop systems, the Internal Revenue Service may have the largest civilian data processing operation in the federal government. . . .
The head of the House technology subcommittee, Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), recently gave a D- rating to the IRS's parent organization, the Treasury Department, for year 2000 work so far. . . .
But the man ultimately responsible for the IRS year 2000 project, program director John Yost, said the agency will be able to process and collect taxes when the new millennium dawns.
``I know Art [Gross] is concerned, and there are legitimate reasons to be concerned,'' Yost said. But he said all software has been inventoried, 121 mission-critical applications have been identified and work has been scheduled for completion by January 1999. ``We are making enormous progress, and I think that we will be ready and our systems will work,'' he said. . . .
There are about 700 full-time people working on year 2000 issues at the IRS. The service also has hired about 150 contractors to help test systems deemed year 2000-compliant. ``They are not finding significant problems,'' Yost said.
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