State and local governments want to embrace cloud services for the cost savings, flexibility, scalability, security, and improved customer experiences that they can bring. But the cloud brings challenges that are directly related to each of these benefits. For example, the pay-as-you-go cloud services model can deliver cost savings, but agencies need new processes in […]

Amid a rising tide of ransomware attacks against governments and schools nationwide accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, tech pros are prioritizing investments in core technologies to manage risk, including security and compliance, network infrastructure, and cloud computing. But implementation is hampered by dwindling resources and access to personnel training, according to a new survey by SolarWinds. The […]

The collective efforts of the past year to assist with vaccine distribution, expansion of last-mile delivery services, and a boom in digital software are just glimpses of the technologies that will soon enable smart cities around the world. One estimate predicted that upwards of $124 billion would be spent worldwide on smart city initiatives in […]

Many a political leader or IT director will stipulate that government needs to make citizen-facing computer systems more like Amazon – fast, friendly, efficient, and unfailing. But more often than not this seems to be a bridge too far, as some of the most visible citizen-facing government applications have performed woefully. While the pandemic exposed […]

As we predicted two months ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week postponed the October 2021 deadline for Americans to have REAL ID compliant driver’s licenses or identity cards to fly or enter many Federal facilities. Several states – and especially California – were quite nervous about their departments of motor vehicles […]

Federal support for some flavor of broadband service expansion to underserved areas of the United States is an idea whose time has come into fuller flower after many years of being an issue mostly in the wheelhouses of local planning boards, telecom company lobbying shops, and communications policy wonks. It’s another example of a big […]

Before the pandemic, 16.9 million kids fell into what was dubbed the “homework gap.” Essentially, these students had access to the internet and the educational resources it affords while in class but not when at home. Many were forced to use Wi-Fi at fast-food restaurants or rely on the library to do their schoolwork. In […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned historic levels of fraud in state government unemployment insurance (UI) programs – enabled through combined failures of policy, procedure, management, leadership, and technology. The pandemic fraud-wave has resulted in perhaps the greatest financial debacle in state governance history – wasting as much as $30 billion in California alone. Nationwide on […]

It had to be good news for IT-challenged states when President Biden last week signed the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus bill that includes a somewhat surprising $2 billion funding award to the Department of Labor (DoL) to help with state unemployment insurance (UI) program improvement. The plan’s UI package was first reported by MeriTalk on […]

It’s hard to refocus on “normal” just as we seem to be finally getting a handle on the COVID pandemic with new vaccinations reaching millions every day across America. But a big regulatory deadline is coming up in October for many individual Americans, and meeting it is going to depend on already over-stressed state IT […]

With many states admitting to substantial fraudulent payments due to poor management and problematic unemployment insurance (UI) application systems, what are they doing about fraud in other state programs that collectively make up another giant elephant in the room? While California alone has admitted to processing over $11 billion in fraudulent UI claims in the […]

(Editor’s note: John Thomas Flynn was California state CIO from 1995-99.) If you live in California, you probably already know the story of the state government unemployment insurance (UI) system’s performance debacle over the past year. And if you live elsewhere – and the story got lost in the avalanche of pandemic-driven bad news over […]

Since 1920, the State of New Hampshire has held its presidential primary elections before any other state, making it a critical first step on the road to the White House. New Hampshire marks the centennial of its first-in-the-nation presidential primary on February 11, 2020. In the last 100 years, government officials and constituents have witnessed […]

Many state and local government (SLG) information technology (IT) managers understand the cloud must be central to their strategy as they look to pick up the pace on modernization and transformation efforts. Those who adopt new technologies early typically have an advantage, especially in government. Governments that provide online services distinguish themselves from those who […]

By Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist, TeamDynamix First developed in the 1980’s, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a library of volumes describing a framework of best practices for IT service management (ITSM). Since its introduction, ITIL continues to evolve. Today, it includes five books, each covering a different ITSM lifecycle stage. These stages include […]

The smart city movement has tremendous transformative promise – with the potential to save the United States $5 trillion annually. As such, many forward-looking cities are taking steps to become smarter, and rightfully so. The possible benefits are endless – from advances in health and safety initiatives to keeping citizens aware of neighborhood updates to […]

By: Hardik Bhatt, Leader, Digital Government, Amazon Web Services The Federal government isn’t alone in the digital transformation race – state and local agencies are sprinting towards the finish line as well. In this blog series, we’ll dig into a variety of hot topics related to IT modernization in state and local government including cloud […]

By Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist, TeamDynamix Building and maintaining an organizational knowledge base (KB) can be an extensive undertaking. Taking the time to thoughtfully do so, however, can yield powerful benefits for years to come, especially for public sector organizations.  Employees will benefit from more efficient processes, thus freeing up time to focus on […]

By Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist, TeamDynamix Public sector organizations are challenged by lack of IT resources – particularly in light of the rapid increase in tech spend. This onslaught of new technology needs to be implemented and supported but this is increasingly a challenge. The outcome is increased project delays and reduced satisfaction in […]

By Andrew Graf, Chief Product Strategist, TeamDynamix You wouldn’t draft a 10-page essay using your smartphone. Finding the right tool for the job is extremely important, no matter what that job may be. Once a project has been accepted through an established project intake process – the next step is to assess which methodology will […]