Recent hacks on localities’ water supply have shown the importance of cybersecurity in the water infrastructure. Witnesses sounded the alarm about water infrastructure cybersecurity and called for training and funding investments at a July 21 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
Customer experience has been front of mind for local governments that leverage technology to build workflows that can make governments more efficient, and Florida’s Miami-Dade County has been redesigning processes with the customers in mind by advancing projects through difficult circumstances.
For once, the biggest problem with engineering effective IT modernization may not boil down to a lack of money to tackle the job. That conclusion was a top-line takeaway from Republicans, Democrats, and private sector experts at a hearing of the House Government Operations Subcommittee hearing today on how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed state and local governments’ antiquated IT systems, and what governments should do about it now that pandemic conditions are easing in many areas.
It was a rare opportunity at Government Technology’s “Seize the Moment” webinar on June 22 to hear Martin O’Malley – twice a government CEO as mayor of Baltimore and governor of the Old Line State – explain the best ways that CIOs can get the attention of their bosses on tech issues.
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Angus King, I-Maine, introduced a bipartisan bill that aims to close the digital divide and promote “digital equity” utilizing $250 million in annual grants, according to a press release.
Federal and state government chief data officers (CDO) discussed agency strategies and best practices for data governance at a FedInsider digital roundtable event on June 9 against the backdrop of Federal Chief Data Officer Council efforts to establish government-wide best practices for the management, use, protection, and generation of data.
After announcing the creation of six cybersecurity grants for school districts earlier this year, IBM has announced the program’s recipients of $3 million, total, in grants that would allow the school districts to create cybersecurity preparedness teams.
The unprecedented events of 2020 caused increased public records requests for COVID-19 data and information about crisis planning and processes. The types of requests are becoming more complex for health departments, law enforcement, and public safety agencies. Additionally, the rush to remote work during the pandemic led to inaccessible, non-digitized records, increasing the time to release.
While the first two days of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Midyear Conference were all about learning from the pandemic experience, the final day’s discussions on May 27 focused on the future.
Representatives on the House Homeland Security Committee reintroduced legislation May 12 that would create a $500 million-per-year Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program to help incentivize state and local governments (SLGs) to improve cybersecurity funding.
