State CIOs Eye Enterprise IT, More Federal Flexibility

Interoperability, IT funding and the yet-to-be-built public safety broadband network are a few of the national issues weighing heavy on the minds of state CIOs in these early days of 2013. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is urging the federal government to prioritize information exchange, cybersecurity and, more broadly, what the group calls a modernization of regulations and funding streams for state IT.

“It’s past time to modernize how federal agencies work with states to deliver key services, from Medicare benefits to homeland security. Current federal requirements and directives mean that states must spend hundreds of millions to build and support duplicative systems,” NASCIO president and Nebraska state CIO Brenda Decker said in a media release of the association’s 2013 federal policy priorities. “Cloud services are something our children are using and lightning fast information exchange is a simple click away.”