HOW OLD Are Washington State Government Computers? You Won’t Believe It

This digital software issue is resurfacing because a new IT bill has been introduced in the legislature, and it pinpoints an almost laughable problem with the government's IT programs.

A Democratic legislator, Rep. Zach Hudgins, has proposed a bill that would pay the college tuition for computer science and programming students if they agree to work for state agencies upon graduation, and if they agree to study an "ancient" programming code known as COBOL.

What is COLBOL, and why does Hudgins want students to learn it? It's the mainstay of the bulk of computer systems used by all Washington state government agencies. It's SO old, colleges and universities stopped teaching it years ago. Here's how bad the state's computers have gotten:

• The Department of Licensing computer systems date back to 1989. Their programs don't have a "back" button, so if a mistake is made, or a client doesn't know they need to provide a certain piece of information, for example in a vehicle transfer - the entire transaction must be deleted and they have to start over.
• The state's court system uses computers designed in the 1970's.
• The Department of Revenue uses 1980's and in a few cases, 1990's era software.

COBOL is so ancient that to create a specialty license plate it involves 18 months of complex, back-end coding at the Department of Licensing.

But because the state is in deep debt, and because it would cost about $2.8 billion dollars to upgrade these systems, Hudgins says it's cheaper to pass his bill that would pay upcoming programmers to learn and master their old systems.

This predicament makes you wonder where did they get the money to build the Healthcare Exchange, and what have they been doing with our tax dollars the last 40 years?