Tarek Tomes, who serves the North Star State as the Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) and state Chief Information Officer (CIO), has adopted a unique formula for assessing state priorities for IT modernization efforts among state agencies.

Minnesota is working with consulting and managed services firm Mission Critical Partners (MCP) as part of the state’s migration to Next Generation 911 (NG911) service.

Following a cyberattack detected on April 6, Minnesota’s Rochester Public Schools (RPS) has announced that it does not believe that any student data was accessed. Additionally, the school system said that it has no evidence that the affected data pertaining to RPS employees has been used for financial fraud or identity theft. Since the attack was detected, the school system has been working with third-party forensics experts as part of an ongoing investigation.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced it has awarded two grants totaling more than $25.7 million to two Tribal nations – the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota and the Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico – as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP).

Minnesota is piloting a new telehealth test-to-treat program, which it says will help ensure that Minnesotans who have tested positive for COVID-19 have easy access to clinician care and therapeutic treatments that reduce their risk of serious illness or hospitalization.

The nonprofit Results for America has recognized eight states – Colorado, Minnesota, Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, Utah, and Connecticut – for their achievements in using data-driven and evidence-based policymaking to “accelerate economic mobility, advance equity, and deliver better results for their residents.”

With new governors taking office across the country after the 2018 midterm elections, state IT departments are seeing new and familiar faces take the helm.

The National Association of State CIOs recognized excellence in state technology at all levels at the recently wrapped NASCIO 2017 annual conference. Four awards were announced: the State Technology Innovator Awards, the 2017 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards, the Thomas M. Jarrett Cybersecurity Scholarship, and the Corporate Longevity Awards.

Chris Buse, the state of Minnesota’s first chief information security officer (CISO), was named Public Sector Visionary of the Year at the Cyber Security Summit.

North Carolina legislators seek to limit the public’s access to police video recordings. A law effective Oct. 1 excludes police body and dashboard cameras from the public record. The law allows only people involved in the case to review it–at police discretion. For those not involved in the case, including media, protesters, and activist groups, viewing the footage will require a court order.