Remember the Y2K flap, and the rush to fix computer systems?

Not all of the fixes worked as well as hoped. The Modesto Irrigation District board voted Tuesday to spend $205,000 to replace some bill processing equipment purchased in 1999 to head off Y2K problems.

The equipment records customer payments and posts them on the main billing system.

The MID experienced significant problems with the hardware and software immediately after it was installed, according to Ron Montwid, assistant general manager of customer services.

Working with the supplier, the district was able to get many of the problems fixed, Montwid said, but the system proved inadequate to meet future needs of the district.

Without the looming deadline of Y2K, the district's information technologies and customer service departments were able to more thoroughly investigate a replacement system, Montwid said.

Board member Tom Van Groningen expressed concern that such cooperation did not happen when the current system was purchased.

"I hope that doesn't recur. That led to the downfall of the earlier decision," he said.

The new hardware and software, from Fairfax Imaging in Virginia, should cut the cost of handling an individual bill from 39 cents to 27 cents, he said, which would allow the machine to pay for itself in three years.

The Fairfax system also will have 10 times the capacity of the current system, Montwid said. That opens the possibility of contracting with other agencies, such as the city or county, to do billing work for tax payments, for instance.

Customers who have questions about their bills should also notice a difference, Montwid said. Customer service representatives will be able to bring the billing information up on their computer screens while the customer is on the telephone, he said.

Now the customer service employee has to take customers' phone numbers and get back to them after looking up the information.

The customer service department that uses the equipment processes about 60,000 checks a month, totaling more than $8.5 million.

The ModBee

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2002