Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A new computer system used to dispense food vouchers to 67,000 low-income families is riddled with programming errors and may have to be replaced, according to consultants hired by the Utah Department of Health.
The consultants said the programming errors are so numerous that debugging them is nearly impossible.
But rather than replacing the system, health officials have decided to patch up the program.
That's what the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommended. The department oversees the food voucher program for women, infants and children.
"The time and cost of scrapping the troubled software prohibits us from doing that," said Utah's Women, Infant and Children program manager, Kevin Condra.
Repairing the program should take about eight months, Condra said.
In March, the state health department rolled out new Windows software to run the WIC program. The software replaced a 10-year-old DOS-based system that officials say had outlived its usefulness.
But the new system proved to be problematic. Because of frequent crashes, client data has been lost and appointments have been dropped, causing scheduling problems.
At some WIC clinics, clients waited as long as four hours to be cleared for aid. The software also double-issued food vouchers.
In May, Utah brought in the first of two independent consultants to report on the system.
The first wrote: "I'm not sure that your programmer could ever fix this application to work properly. He would have to go back and redesign the whole structure . . .. Trying to patch it now could destroy the integrity that is already questionable." The second reported "further investment in the WIC application" is not prudent.
Denver-based USDA programmer Booz Allen Hamilton reported that the current system, while flawed, is improving and that replacing it would be too disruptive and costly.
------
Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
