Lockard presents information services budget to money committee

Friday, Feb. 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Among those improvements is the $9.5 million "Year 2000 Conversion" program, designed to update the state's computers so they don't break down when the 21st century starts in three years.

In a much-publicized gaffe, computer programmers didn't design computers to read digits beyond 1999, forcing the country to spend billions in reprogramming. Nevada will pay about one-third of the cost of its conversion, and the rest of the money will come from federal sources.

"Nevada has moved very aggressively on this issue and has a statewide plan in place for the conversion," said Information Systems chief Marlene Lockard. "We're testing it now and we hope that it will work, because we really have no wriggle room here."

Lockard said testing of the conversion program should be completed by the end of February.

Lockard urged lawmakers to pass the recommended measures in Gov. Bob Miller's information services budget, saying that Nevada's future depends upon sound technology.

"Our present structure courts obselescence," Lockard said. "We can not do well with a staff chained to old technology."

Lockard said her department doesn't have a quality assurance program or a fund for the acquisition of mainframe computers. She also said the department doesn't have any post-implementation training programs.

"As we are all painfully aware, technology has no value unless it is successfully applied," Lockard said.

One of the major recommended expenditures is a $5.6 million upgrade of the state's microwave communication system. The project will eventually replace the state's 25-year-old analog system with a digital network.

Lockard also said she hopes to hire two specialists for a $218,000 quality assurance program. One would analyze software while the other would analyze network systems.

"We are spending millions of dollars on projects and we need to monitor these projects as an investment," Lockard said. "This isn't just Windows that you can get for $300. This is $300,000 mainframe software."

Lockard also asked for an additional 14 computer network specialists to operate out of Las Vegas and rural Nevada and nine specialists to work out problems with "NOMADS," a computer program that tracks welfare recipients for the state welfare division. The over-budget NOMADS project alone will cost the division $1.4 million.

"We've had a lot of problems with NOMADS because it's not a system we developed," said Lockard. "Frankly, I'm not confident with anything having to do with NOMADS."

The state will face federal sanctions if NOMADS is not running by September.