"[I]t's the type of thing that just over time it has become something that if it's not broke, don't fix it"

The computer program the state Education Department uses to calculate $25 billion in school aid it distributes is 30 years old and written in COBOL, Joseph Spector reports. NYSED has tried unsuccessfully in recent years to get a $2 million allocation to convert to something more modern because the software's no longer supported and the department is worried about its longterm reliability. Also, it sounds like it's kind of pain to use. (We bet state government is full of stuff like this -- data systems powered by hamster wheels, being held together by tape and the evaporating knowledge of old programming languages). [USA Today Network Albany]

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