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Only 13 of the 24 major government offices have brought all of their critical systems into Y2K compliance

March 31, 1999
Web posted at: 10:56 p.m. EST (0356 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Wednesday was the deadline set by the White House for federal agencies to have all their critical computer systems ready to withstand the Y2K computer bug -- but nearly half of the agencies didn't make it and neither did the White House.

The General Accounting Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, says it is most concerned about three key agencies -- the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense and the health finance section of the Department of Health and Human Services, which processes Medicaid forms.

The White House's Y2K czar, John Koskinen, says 13 of the 24 major government departments have brought 100 percent of their critical systems into Y2K compliance.

Eleven other agencies say they need three or four more months to get critical systems ready for the New Year, but 10 of the 11 have repaired and tested at least 85 percent of their systems.

Only one agency -- the U.S. Agency for International Development -- has not fixed any of its critical systems, mainly because it started late and ran into more problems than expected, Koskinen said.

But Koskinen expressed confidence that USAID and the rest of the agencies would have their work finished by the end of the summer.

The White House also reported that only one-fourth of its systems were compliant, but it expects to have all of them debugged by October.

Contingency plans in the works

While the federal government boasts that, overall, 92 percent of its most critical systems are Y2K ready, each agency will have contingency plans in place in case critical systems fail.

Though the vast majority of federal systems have been debugged, Joel Willemssen of the GAO cautioned against a false sense of security.

"There are still risk areas that need to be addressed, and so the pressure still needs to... be put on the federal government," he said.

Some Republicans in Congress expressed skepticism about Koskinen's findings.

"Although a federal department might claim to be Year 2000 'compliant,' the claim hasn't been independently tested," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) in a statement. "That's like children being able to grade their own tests and everyone getting a perfect score."

But Koskinen defended the findings of the White House's Y2K panel, saying they had been reviewed by each agency's inspector general and the GAO.

Correspondent Ann Kellan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.