Office of Management and Budget officials described a patchwork of incompatible computer systems supporting inconsistent processes. Despite substantial progress since then, many of the original criticisms still apply. Systems are better than they were a decade ago, but expectations and needs have outpaced the improvements. Fewer than half fully implemented the U.S. Government Standard General Ledger, the basic set of data and transaction definitions at the heart of the push for uniformity in federal accounting. And a year ago, fewer than half the systems were ready for the year 2000.
Technical deficiencies are only part of the picture.
Old systems are inflexible and difficult to modify. Many agencies are reorganizing, and their management systems have not kept up. At NASA, for example, equipment purchases today must be recorded in at least three different systems, and sometimes as many as seven, for procuring and then managing the new asset. Once the data is entered in the different systems, it has to be reconciled across them. A single entry error can suck up hours of staff time.