In California, Retro-Tech Complicates Budget Woes
A recent New York Times article reports that faced with a $15 billion budget shortfall and a testy State Legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dealing with a host of critics, including pro-tax Democrats, tax-averse Republicans and a public increasingly displeased with him.
Now, even the state¹s computers seem to be against him.
Last week, with no budget agreement in sight, the governor issued an executive order terminating thousands of part-time and temporary state employees and slashing the wages of about 170,000 of the state¹s full-time workers to the federal minimum wage.
Last week, with no budget agreement in sight, the governor issued an executive order terminating thousands of part-time and temporary state employees and slashing the wages of about 170,000 of the state¹s full-time workers to the federal minimum wage.
But the California controller, John Chiang, says the state¹s payroll system ‹ which uses a programming throwback known as Cobol, or Common Business-Oriented Language ‹ is so antiquated it would take months to make the changes to workers¹ checks.
³In 2003, my office tried to see if we could reconfigure our system to do such a task,² Mr. Chiang told a State Senate committee on Monday. ³And after
12 months, we stopped without a feasible solution.²
David J. Farber, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said using Cobol was roughly equivalent to having ³a television with vacuum tubes.²
³There are no Cobol programmers around anymore,² Mr. Farber said. ³They retired centuries ago.²
Mr. Farber said California was not alone in having out-of-date systems ‹ or handy excuses.
³It¹s old technology, and you can¹t find a repairman who knows how to fix it,² he said. ³It also a neat way of figuring how not to get your salary cut.²