COLUMBUS - The new licensing system for Ohio's 21 regulatory boards - already more than a year behind schedule - has been delayed again after state purchasing officials recently learned that their $1.6 million contract with a Maryland company expired last summer.

The oversight by officials at the Department of Administrative Services requires the agency to go to the Controlling Board next month to request an immediate renewal of the department's contract with System Automation Corp. A DAS official estimated that the department also would ask for an additional $20,000 for training and data conversion.

After saying last fall that the new system finally would be launched on Jan. 12, DAS officials said yesterday that it wouldn't be rolled out until July.

Regulatory board officials said they were stunned to learn during a Thursday briefing that DAS officials had not realized until last month that the contract with System Automation had ended June 30. Two board officials described the news as being delivered in an "Oh, by the way" manner.

"Everyone was in disbelief," said Lili C. Reitz, executive director of the Ohio State Dental Board. "We've been complaining so much about the lack of communication. We're wondering if we're going to have a system.

"I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that 'we don't have a contract' is not supposed to be a big deal."

Donald P. Bishop, the new DAS project manager for License 2000, said he, too, was surprised to learn that the contract had lapsed, but said work on the project was continuing.

"That just gives us another task we have to accomplish," he said.

Officially called License 2000 but ridiculed by board officials as "Molasses 2000" and "License 2001," the new computer system will integrate licensing, enforcement and continuing-education data for boards ranging from the Medical Board, whose annual budget is $6 million, to the $102,000-a-year Sanitarian Registration Board.

In addition to the system's $1.6 million price tag, the state is paying another private contractor up to $481,000 to help install the system.

Board officials have been frustrated by the slow pace of the project, which began in the summer of 1996, when board officials first viewed demonstrations of several companies' professional licensing systems.

In September 1998, worried about a potential Y2K disaster, DAS officials sought permission to award an unbid contract to System Automation. The Controlling Board granted the bid waiver with the understanding that the system would be operational by Dec. 31, 1999.

Since then, DAS, board and System Automation officials have quarreled about system specifications, and about requests by the contractor for additional funds. Although DAS officials have denied previous requests for more money, Bishop said DAS would ask for about $20,000 to train board employees and to pay for the conversion of data from the boards' old computer systems to License 2000.

Board officials credit Bishop with keeping them better informed than they have been in the past, but they still express dismay at what seems to be a project without end.

"My eyes have been opened by this process," said Christopher H. Logsdon, executive secretary of the Respiratory Care Board. "There are some times I'm looking at this project and just wishing it would go away."

Cleveland Plain Dealer

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2001