JEFFERSON CITY -- Much of Missouri's state government is driven by computers. Some 37,325 of them, to be exact.

Each year the Division of Data Processing and Telecommunications issues a report to the governor's office detailing the extent of its operations and the millions of dollars that are annually spent to bring state government into the electronic age. In its most recent report, covering fiscal 1994, the division said Missouri taxpayers picked up a $95.1 million tab to purchase new equipment and operate, program and maintain data processing equipment that ranges from mainframes to so-called non-intelligent work stations.

Computers have become so ubiquitous in state government that at least five offices and agencies have more data processing machines than employees. The governor's office, for example, has 43 full-time workers and 44 data processing machines.

The office of the state treasurer has 57 computers but only 50 employees, while the attorney general's office, with 332 workers, has 381 pieces of data processing equipment.

The Department of Insurance, with a staff of 127, has 139 computers, while the 2,300-employee Department of Revenue uses 2,556 computers.

Missouri's 16 departments are currently operating 8 mainframe processors, 110 mid-range processors, 14,455 microcomputers and 8,320 director computer terminals.

Although the data processing division, which operates within the Office of Administration, oversees the largest part of the state's processing systems of the four-campus University of Missouri system, involves itself only with computers used at the five regional universities.

Northwest Missouri State University at Maryville is the smallest of the five regional universities but has the second largest accumulation of computers. With 5,000 students, the Northwest Missouri school has 3,529 computers, only 248 fewer than the 14,000-student campus at Southwest Missouri State University at Springfield. (Northwest provides a computer for every dormitory room and has many computers accessible to students throughout its campus.)

Expense and equipment expenditures for Missouri's statewide officials, departments and regional universities rose $10 million from the previous year, but the equipment purchase category dropped slightly from fiscal 1993. On the other hand, consulting services increased 68 percent in the past fiscal period, with vendor services closely behind with a 62 percent increase. The number of personnel in data processing and telecommunications functions increased to 1,334 in fiscal 1994 from 1,256 in fiscal 1993, an increase of 9.3 percent.

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