The Millennium Bug took a chomp from the September paychecks of about 14,000 University workers but has promised to put the money back next month. The glitch occurred after computer programmers working on the taxable life insurance portion of the payroll system believed they'd fully tested the correct century dates. This is the same infamous Bug that is plaguing older computer programs worldwide, causing a stampede to reset century, year, month, and date fields. The payroll problem wasn't even part of the formal reprogramming project, according to Roach. So that's been going on piecemeal.
Every little bit helps.
The payroll changes were tested, but the Bug still managed to elude capture, Roach said. This wasn't the first time University programs have been affected. In January, the business office at University Hospitals and Clinics started entering notes to extend patient accounts for three years, only to find the accounts disappeared at the end of the month, said Steve Krumbholz, associate director of UIHC's Information Systems. We don't have to wait for the year 2000 for all the information systems in the country to collapse. The extra money taken out for life insurance will be restored in October paychecks.