Ten Technology Priorities for State and Local Agencies
Cybersecurity. This issue remains a top concern for county technology leaders. To that end, NACo worked with Accenture to produce a resiliency report. The study informing the report included focus group meetings, individual county IT leader interviews and a survey.
In the report, 40 percent of counties have seen an increase in the number of attempted, unsuccessful breaches against their networks over the prior year. Areas of concern include budget as well as retaining cyber insurance. The publication recommends conducting assessments, developing a strategy focused on the workforce and taking advantage of partnerships.
IT Talent Recruitment and Retention. Workforce shortages challenge all agencies, not just cybersecurity agencies. While competitive salaries are an issue, county IT is finding some success by focusing on benefits such as long-term employment. NACo provides several career development opportunities for county IT leadership including the High-Performance Leadership Academy.
Data Governance. With the ever-growing volume of county electronic documents and records, data governance is becoming an even greater challenge. You can only protect what you are aware of. And with increased security requirements from auditors and cyber insurance providers, counties must ensure they have a data asset inventory and the proper security controls. To assist in this area, NACo provides access to a members-only portal that contains templates for policies, job descriptions and toolkits, including asset inventory templates.
LEARN MORE: How agencies can mitigate threats created by AI enhancements.
Broadband. Broadband connectivity remains a top priority for counties with unserved and underserved residents. New federal resources have supercharged the broadband infrastructure deployment landscape, and county IT leaders are increasingly tasked with ensuring the strategic deployment of high-speed internet for every county resident in need.
County IT leaders can help strategize for deployment projects through innovative geospatial information mapping and sharing data with the state broadband office, by fostering a local focus for ensuring internet service providers are offering accessible and affordable internet services, and by serving as an educator and leader for promoting adoption to the network.
Counties can facilitate education on digital skills for residents in need and provide resources to encourage participation in the benefits and services of the internet.
Cloud Adoption. Sixty-three percent of counties utilize a mix of cloud and on-premises infrastructure to host their applications and technology operations.
Due to staff shortages as well as improved security through the cloud, counties will push even more functions to the cloud. NACo will assist counties in providing guidance in areas such as contract language for cloud service providers. This includes a TechBrief on contract language, which is available to NACo Tech Xchange members.
Rural and Small County Technology. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 72 percent of all counties in the United States are considered rural, and about 76 percent have populations of 50,000 or fewer. It is difficult for many counties in this category to keep pace with the growing need for sufficient cyber protection, let alone move toward the modernization of systems and provide more digital services for residents. NACo is facilitating several pilots with corporate partners that are focused on bringing no-code/low-code solutions and security services to this county segment.
Autonomous Innovation. Autonomous innovation is growing by leaps and bounds. Counties are working to improve posture when it comes to the use of autonomous equipment, including drones, self-driving equipment (tractors, lawnmowers) and robotics. To facilitate discussions, NACo focuses at least one segment of the in-person CIO Forums that occur at NACo conferences.
The July 2023 forum will include presentations and demonstrations of autonomous options and relevant use cases for counties in areas such as facilities and geospatial information systems.
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