Agenda Packets - 1999/02/01 - Laserfiche WebLink

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pirquismararmmarmitraratrarisrairarararisarm ; productivity,and profitability in your company, but will expose the company and you to class-action lawsuits, possible loss of coverage from insurance companies,malpractice for professionals,and director and officer liability--a grand slam!" Several states have passed laws to protect private business and state agencies from just that kind of legal action related to the Y2K problem. Despite those efforts,and despite the fact that the Year 2000 problem is a technical problem with a technical solution,your city or county attorney should be aware of legal risks. On the Technical Side Solving the Year 2000 problem is not technically difficult,even for embedded microchips. There are five recognized solutions to the Year 2000 problem: Conversion:The only fix that is a complete and permanent solution is also the most obvious: convert every date to a four-digit year,following International Standard Organization ISO 8601,adopted by the American National Standards Institute(ANSI),which calls for all dates to be entered as "yyyy mmdd." March 31, 1998 would be entered and stored as 1998-03-31. This approach offers a com- plete, permanent fix that will change all data records and every application using them. It is also the most intuitive fix. But it requires extensive program and file conversions. Every program in an application must be checked for significant data use and converted;then the entire application has to be converted from its previous form to its new form all at once. Existing data must also be converted all at once. This includes all active,archived,and security files. This approach will also demand a significant amount of new storage space,roughly a 7-percent increase. It will take the most time and is the most costly. Fixed Windowing:Creating a 100-year window such as 1936 and 2036 can give com- puters and software a way to decide which century is appropriate for a date. If the two-digit year is greater than 36,say 47 or 99,then the program assumes the century digits to be 19;if the two-year digit is less than or equal to 36,the century digits are assumed to be 20. This approach requires no change in data,but it provides only a temporary fix. At best,it buys some time. It works only until its appointed time runs out,and at that point it will require reprogramming. Sliding Windowing:This is like fixed windowing,with one significant difference. The 100-year window is calculated from the current date. Each year the software using sliding windows will adjust(slide)the 100-year window one year forward. This approach requires no changes in data, only in date processing routines,and the same code can be used for many years. Production programs,for most applications,can be gradually converted, and they can adapt year after year without reprogramming. If the 100-year window is well-selected,it may be permanent and cheaper than ISO 8601. Thus,sliding windowing offers many local governments the fastest,most reliable, and least costly way of dealing with the Y2K problem. Y2K YOU -5- Q Q*s g m ®1°"'_