[AccessD] Date in Combo box with SQL view as rowsource returning as string

[David McAfee]

I've been updating existing queries other users have created that use
hardcoded values to use a form with a combo box.

The combo box uses a SQL view as it's row source.
The view pulls from a table:

SELECT FY, StartDate, EndDate, sFY, dFY, uFY FROM tblFiscalYears

The results are as expected
(actually the original view was simply selecting values unioned together
without a table)
1314 2013-07-01 2014-06-30 14/15 14-15 14_15
1415 2014-07-01 2015-06-30 14/15 14-15 14_15
1516 2015-07-01 2016-06-30 15/16 15-16 15_16
1617 2016-07-01 2017-06-30 16/17 16-17 16_17

Most of the queries use one of the variations of 1516, 15-16... and are
compared as text.
Today I noticed a query returning incorrect results and I found that the
2nd and 3rd (date) columns are being treated as text, rather than dates.

I tried casting as dates, but still no difference:

SELECT FY, CAST(StartDate as datetime) AS FyStartDate, CAST(EndDate as
DATETIME) AS FyEndDate, sFY, dFY, uFY FROM tblFiscalYears WITH (NOLOCK)

I even made two hidden text boxes on the form, with format set to short
date.
The on change event of the combo box populates the text boxes.

Everything I tried always results in a fail:
? forms!frmBuildCosReport!cboFY.column(1)<now()
False
? forms!frmBuildCosReport!txtFYStart < now()
False

This works:
? CDATE(forms!frmBuildCosReport!cboFY.column(1))<now()
True
But, I don't think I should have to do this (not to mention update many man
y queries).

Am I going nuts?

TIA,
David