COBOL takes center stage in CA budget controversy

A deadlock between legislators in the state parliament over California's staggering $15 billion debt has left the state without an approved budget for more than a month, so far. COBOL entered the picture when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gave an order to cut the salaries of California's 200,000 state employees in an attempt to rein in the deficit. State controller John Chiang refused however, on the grounds that it will take six months to re-configure its COBOL-based payroll system to make it happen. It didn't help that the COBOL programmers who could make the changes were among 10,000 employees laid off as part of an earlier headcount cut.  Just revamp the whole system? Sure, IBM offered to re-write the California system for $30 million over three years.

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