COMPUTER CRASH MAY MARK MILLENNIUM.

Byline: Erin McCormick San Francisco Examiner 

Just after midnight Jan. 1, 2000, the computers that handle billions of dollars of payments and collections for California government are set to go haywire.

Suddenly, in the data banks of the state's computers, seniors collecting pensions could turn into 12-year-olds, every tax bill in California could become overdue and children receiving child support officially could be considered elderly.

In cities like San Francisco, jail computers could be unable to compute prisoners' release dates and, officials fear, even elevators that rely on computer chips might shut down.

This potential worldwide disaster, known as the year 2000 computer crisis, arises from the fact that most computers store only the last two digits of the year. While it might seem like a trivial problem, it is expected to cause nightmares for computer users around the world.

``Any program that uses a date is at risk, whether it's issuing a driver's license, calculating a pension or tracking a state investment,'' said Bob Dell'Agostino of the California Legislative Analyst's Office. ``Government - and the whole private sector - has been sitting on this time bomb and, suddenly, everybody's waking up and realizing it's ticking away.''

The crisis was built into computer software in the early days of programming to save time and space on systems that, in the 1950s and '60s, often stored information on bulky punch cards.

Worldwide, fixing the problem in government and private computers that control everything from sprinkler systems to banking is predicted to cost $600 billion.

For state and local governments, circumventing the glitch could cost more than $100 million, according to official estimates. Programmers will have to go through thousands of city and state programs and alter millions of lines of computer code.

Most machines are programmed to assume that the first two digits of the year are ``19.'' As far as computers are concerned, the new millennium is exactly the same as the year 1900.

This could create all kinds of unexpected twists in the answers that computers generate. For instance, if a person were born in 1912, the age produced by the computer in 2000 would be minus 12. The computer won't read the minus sign, but it will read the 12.

``You could end up going to the bank with a check that nobody's going to cash because it's dated year 1900,'' said Dell'Agostino, who has estimated the price tag to fix the problem at $50 million for state government alone.

With only three years to go and the clock ticking, no one knows where that money will come from. Some experts worry it already may be too late to get the problem fixed in time.

``The year 2000 is going to come whether we're ready or not,'' said Assemblywoman Debra Bowen, D-Torrance, who heads a committee on state technology issues. ``I'd like to see us moving much faster than we are now. We're not yet budgeting any significant amount of money for this.

``If there's a delay and this doesn't get done, it will affect almost every aspect of government.''

John Thomas Flinn, the chief administrator of the state's new Department of Information Technology, said he is conducting an inventory of all the computer programs in the state's 122 agencies to get an idea of the problem. He said he is confident that California, which has more than 100,000 computers, will get the programming changes done on time to make the state ``2000 compliant.''

``Gov. Wilson has said he wants California to be one of the first states in the nation to be 2000-compliant,'' said Flinn, whose department has been tapped to oversee the project and several others on a tiny $4 million budget. ``We're going to make this happen.''

Flinn said a few agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, already have reprogrammed their computers to deal with the date change.

In Nebraska, which estimates it will spend $24 million to fix the problem, the Legislature set aside 2 cents of its cigarette tax for four years to take care of the millennium problem.

But Wilson has not yet announced any major funding plans.

Government hardly is the only sector that will be hit by the crisis. The Gartner Group, a consulting firm that advises companies how to deal with the millennium change in their computers, has made the dire prediction that 20 percent of the companies in the world will go out of business because they will be unable to deal with the computer problems. The consultants group also predicts there may be such a demand, there won't be enough trained computer programmers on the market.

Government, with its slow procurement processes and dependence on outdated computer software, may have more trouble adapting than private industry.

California often has had its major computer projects take years longer than planned. In the past five years, the state has had to throw away millions of dollars in already-paid-for technology - such as the $49.4 million and seven years DMV officials spent trying to update their vast computer system - because of poor planning.

``We've been trying to get better about this,'' Bowen said. ``But this is one case where a delay would mean disaster.''

Flinn, who is coordinating the state's response, said it would be a scramble to determine exactly which programs need fixing and then launch programmers to make all the changes.

``On Saturday, Jan. 1, year 2000, I have a feeling most of us will be at work,'' Flinn said, ``or out of the country.''