Don’t you just love it when the mainstream press does a story involving computers. It’s even better when the sources of that story are bureaucratic flacks. That can make for some truly amusing reading. But I have to admit that this headline on the Denver channel site, home of 7News the local ABC affiliate, takes the cake:
Unemployment Issues Blamed On Aging State Computer
I’ll admit to having quite the WTF moment after reading that. I mean all this time I thought it was the economy tanking that was responsible for unemployment issues. I had no idea it was due to an old computer right here in Colorado. Somebody should tell the President. I’m sure we could get that fixed for a whole lot less than he’s talking about spending.
But alas the article, which does in fact feature the aging computer pimped in the headline, was about problems at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Better cancel that call to the President.
Despite a long list of problems, the state of Colorado is unable to replace its 25-year-old computer system, which is being blamed for several errors at the Department of Labor and Employment.
From long wait times on the phone to printing problems involving tax forms, the state says its computer can’t always effectively handle the high volume of unemployment claims.
Holy artifact, Batman! Slap a Museum sign on the door to that data room and charge admission. Or donate it to the Smithsonian Institute for the American Museum of Defunct Technology [not a real museum]. Yeah, I’ll bet it “can’t always effectively handle the high volume”! Question is can it ever effectively handle high volume. Now most stories like this one follow the predicable trajectory of all bureaucratic debacles:
- We’re doing our job poorly because [insert scapegoat here] isn’t working right.
- But we know exactly what the problem is with [insert scapegoat here] and how to fix it.
- It will cost [insert large amount of money here].
- But the [insert elected officials or group here] won’t give us the money.
- So the poor [insert afflicted constituency here] are suffering because of the bad [insert scapegoat here] that the [insert elected officials or group here] won’t fix.
- Recriminations and counteraccusations by [insert elected officials or group here].
But it turns out that this one kinda goes off the rails at step 4.
Estimates place an upgrade at $40 million.
The move to replace the system dates back to when [previous Colorado] Gov. Bill Owens was in office, but that attempt died.
The [current Colorado Gov. Bill] Ritter administration set taxes aside for replacement, but those funds were diverted and instead used for unemployment assistance.
Remember when $40 million was a lot of money? Ah those were the days… But I digress. So what they’re saying is that the the politicians did, in fact, set aside the 40 megabucks but then diverted it to pay for the service that the Department of Labor and Employment provides. Why those scoundrels! But wait, it gets better.
This isn’t the first time the Department of Labor has had computer issues. In the late ’90s, the state ditched a program called Genesis. It was supposed to track employment benefits, but was dropped because of accuracy problems.
Accuracy problems? Are you serious? A buggy program has accuracy problems. You fix those in engineering unit test – way before release. Unless you are Adobe, but again I digress. Maybe they mean there were implementation issues like with transferring and converting old data. Or maybe they mean that the data capture was just beyond the capability of the Labor Department IT staff. Or maybe all or none of the above. I’m guessing that it was just your typical government IT cluster…
Whatever the real story, one thing is very clear: we need to upgrade that old SCAPEGOAT v1.0. Maybe with a nice new SCAPEGOAT v20.10.
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