System

Despite being listed on a federal report of cities not prepared to handle potential year 2000 computer problems, Baltimore officials said yesterday that they are putting the finishing touches on making the city systems secure.The reason the city ended up on the list is because it still needs to officially test the system, said Alonza Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.* City is `ready'"We are ready," said Williams. "You'll need no bottled water, you'll see all the traffic lights."

Private gifts to the schools in the University System of Maryland totaled just less than $150 million in the last fiscal year, pushing the total in the first four years of the system's seven-year, $700 million campaign to $473 million.The $149.2 million in gifts in fiscal year 1999 was a record for the system -- a 13 percent increase over the last year and a 50 percent rise from two years ago.More than half the money, $81.7 million, was given to the University of Maryland, College Park where C. D. "Dan" Mote Jr. was hired as president last year in part because state officials hoped his fund-raising prowess -- Mote raised hundreds of millions at the University of California, Berkeley -- would help vault UMCP into the top rank of state universities.

In changes designed to make Baltimore emergency response efforts safer and more efficient, city officials unveiled yesterday their new state-of-the-art emergency communications system.For the first time, 911 or 311 calls to fire and police departments, paramedics and the Department of Water and Power are being routed through one $60 million computer system and can automatically prompt response from all the agencies."This is one of the most sophisticated communications systems anywhere in the world," said Patricia A. Sturmon, a spokeswoman for Motorola, which designed the system.

If the Baltimore schools were a business, Robert Booker would be the turnaround specialist, recruited from a faraway city at the eleventh hour to resuscitate a company in crisis.In fact, when the 68-year-old financial manager steps off an airplane from San Diego today and into his job as head of Baltimore's schools, he will face a system with children reading at levels far behind their peers nationwide and a recalcitrant bureaucracy unfriendly to change.While the state legislature made sure the job carries the title of chief executive officer, Booker won't have the same tools or power he would in a company.

Baltimore's two-year experiment with a nonemergency number has reduced 911 police calls by more than one-third, easing a strained system that sometimes kept callers waiting for help.Officials want to expand the system to tie other city agencies into the 311 line so citizens can dial one number and get help for a variety of problems, from downed tree limbs to plugged storm drains."This 311 system has reversed a disturbing trend in law enforcement," said Maj. John F. Reintzell, who runs the department's communications division.

Growing up in 1960s Harlem, Irving Pressley McPhail was treated to sweet sounds drifting from Small's Paradise night club while the streets crackled with political insurgency."

A contractor's problems getting a new computer system ready to manage Maryland's Medicaid program cost the state more than $13 million in actual and potential losses, a legislative audit report says.The audit report sharply criticized the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's handling of its contract with Andersen Consulting of Washington, D.C., and suggested agency officials explore legal action to try to recover the costs.Officials with DHMH and Andersen Consulting said setting up the new system was a imposing task, and some start-up problems were to be expected.

The new national system of instant background checks for potential firearms purchasers is living up to its name after all.After an ignominious start marred by long delays and a midday shutdown when the system was introduced Nov. 30, Maryland gun dealers say most reviews by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (or NICS) are being completed in a couple of minutes.While some dealers describe the system as intrusive and unnecessary, they have largely muted the anger and frustration they expressed on the first day, when they were unable to make sales of shotguns and rifles because they could not complete the calls needed to make the checks.

Members of the Baltimore County Council are increasingly wary about a proposed charter change that would let the county executive remove 50 to 60 high-level jobs -- including budget analysts -- from the merit system.Two councilmen oppose it outright, while several others, including the chairman, aren't comfortable with an idea that opponents see as a power grab by County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger. A council work session is set for Tuesday."I still cannot see why, when we're trying to boost employee morale and productivity, we would do something that makes employees have so many questions and concerns," said Chairman Stephen G. Sam Moxley, a Catonsville-Arbutus Democrat.

WASHINGTON -- Out on the stump, Barbara Ann Mikulski sometimes trips over key phrases, and her blurry "l"s and "r"s complicate an already strong East Baltimore accent. What animates her, and what propels her listeners, is not eloquence but the seeming force of her conviction.Not quite 5 feet tall, a bit jowly and two years past 60, Mikulski somehow stands out by the virtue of being unremarkable. After almost 30 years in public life, including a dozen in the U.S. Senate, voters still call her by her first name and claim her as one of their own: an unflinching outsider championing the little guy."

Robert Looney is just one of the poster boys for the need to toughen Maryland's system of good time credits for prison inmates. He was among the cases cited last year as city and state officials sought to restrict the credits given to prisoners for good behavior and participation in education and work programs that can lead to early release of prisoners, despite the sentences they received. The system is under attack again this year in the state legislature, and it's easy to see why: Maryland prisoners, on average, serve only about 74 percent of their sentences.

Good morning -- Joe Girardi -- Got clashing with the owner out of your system?

The implementation of the state's new foster child tracking system in Baltimore has been delayed because of continued reports of operating glitches and growing concern among child advocates, including the city's health commissioner, that the system will remain flawed unless more time and money are invested to fix it. The Baltimore Department of Social Services was slated to start using the Chessie computer system - short for Children's Electronic Social...

911. 411. 311. These are the quick and dirty numbers most of us turn to in times of need, whether it's for an emergency, a telephone number or, in Baltimore at least, a pothole. Add to those 211, a fast and convenient way to access hundreds of social services with a single call, or so says the United Way of Central Maryland, which has joined with three other nonprofits to sponsor a $900,000, 10-month pilot set to start tomorrow. They are trying to prove to state legislators that the three-digit number should stay and that the public service should be state-funded.

Both major candidates for governor of Maryland now urge their supporters to vote absentee - pretend they're going to be away on Election Day. It's a high-level vote of no confidence in the system. Even as they seek the highest office in the state, the contenders say they don't trust the system that would take them there. How should the rest of us feel? The late, lamented primary election's biggest loser was, in case you hadn't noticed, public confidence in the election system. It's a crisis that has provoked defensive reactions from the candidates, but has not inspired anyone to take charge and fix the problems in a transparent way. Oh sure, there's hand-wringing and explaining and demonstrating.

Columbia-based MedStar Health, a seven-hospital system, announced yesterday that Microsoft is buying its system to organize patient data from a variety of sources and make it available to doctors and nurses in a fraction of a second. For MedStar, it means a chance to see a system created by two of its emergency room doctors at Washington Hospital Center, then expanded over the past decade, get developed more fully by the world's biggest software company, with its vast capabilities and marketing prowess.

Finally, there is a concrete sign from Baltimore's City Hall of real interest in moving forward on providing free or cheap wireless Internet access across the city - something that we've been encouraging as good for marketing the city, for aiding its economic development and, if done right, for improving opportunities for low-income residents. Baltimore this week will issue a formal "request for ideas," asking companies, nonprofits and citizens for best practices that could be incorporated in a Baltimore-wide WiFi service, says Mario Armstrong, the city's designated "technology advocate."

Eric Nager, an emergency room physician at Franklin Square Hospital Center in Baltimore, said he joined the new Krav Maga center in Columbia because he wanted an exercise system that had a practical element. Krav Maga, which teaches hand-to-hand combat and self-defense, certainly qualifies. The techniques, based on a system established about 40 years ago, are used by the Israeli army and by law-enforcement agencies around the country, according to Bryan Inagaki, the manager and chief instructor at the Columbia facility.

Visicu Inc., a company founded seven years ago by two Johns Hopkins intensive care specialists, has decided to go public after becoming profitable this year. The Baltimore company, which makes systems for remote monitoring of hospital intensive care units, filed a registration statement for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday. The preliminary filing left key details blank, such as the number and price of shares and the timing of the IPO. Funds from the offering will be used to expand the company's business.

If you drive in metropolitan Baltimore and use a cellular phone, somebody might be "watching" as you come and go. A Canadian company is monitoring the flow of vehicle traffic in the area by using an emerging technology that tracks the constant stream of data generated by drivers' cell phones as they communicate with towers in the network. Maryland highway officials are excited. They plan to use the technology to help traffic move more smoothly. But privacy advocates worry that the system could lead to bigger headaches than a Beltway backup.