https://statetechmagazine.com/ en https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/new-guidance-offers-blueprint-local-government-ai-governance As local governments move from experimentation to broader deployment of artificial intelligence, new guidance from the Municipal Research and Services Center suggests that governance may be just as important as the technology itself. The updated resource, published by MRSC in late May, compiles AI policies, governance frameworks and implementation guidance from cities and counties across Washington state. The guidance arrives as local governments nationwide explore generative AI tools for tasks such as research, drafting, meeting summaries and constituent communications. Among the most common… Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:23:35 -0400 Jessica Balen https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/new-guidance-offers-blueprint-local-government-ai-governance https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/without-state-and-local-operational-resilience-data-backups-are-paper-shields State CIOs face a surge in ransomware and artificial intelligence–driven threats that outpace resources. As a result, cyber resilience strategies should include identity protection, operational resilience and recovery speed, driving the need for resilience-by-design infrastructure and rapid restoration of essential services. Community lifelines, including 911 public safety answering points (PSAPs), the local and regional 911 call centers that receive emergency calls and dispatch police, fire and EMS, are high-risk targets. For instance, ransomware can encrypt critical files and systems on… Tue, 16 Jun 2026 14:18:18 -0400 Lou Karu https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/without-state-and-local-operational-resilience-data-backups-are-paper-shields https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/how-state-and-local-governments-can-master-cloud-economics-finops Cloud adoption across state and local government isn’t new, but the way agencies are consuming cloud today has fundamentally changed. Over the past year, I’ve seen a noticeable shift in conversations with customers. Agencies are moving beyond isolated software solutions and leaning heavily into cloud-based consumption models. That shift brings enormous opportunity, but it also introduces a new challenge: managing cloud economics effectively. In a traditional IT model, costs were predictable. You purchased infrastructure, maintained it and planned budgets accordingly. In the cloud, that model… Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:26:03 -0400 Josh Kurian https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/how-state-and-local-governments-can-master-cloud-economics-finops https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/small-towns-big-tech-practical-path-modernizing-government-services Inside a county public works department, a manager squints at a weathered whiteboard, trying to decipher the maintenance schedule for the vehicle fleet. A snowstorm looms, and a critical plow truck goes down because a handwritten note about its faulty hydraulics got erased. Miles away, in a town clerk’s office, a local entrepreneur waits weeks for a permit because the paper application sits in a pile, disconnected from the zoning and inspection departments that need to sign off. Scenes like these, familiar to many public sector leaders in small and rural communities, depict more than just… Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:49:50 -0400 Jan Ruderman https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/small-towns-big-tech-practical-path-modernizing-government-services https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/digital-employee-experience-why-government-shifting-proactive-it-perfcon In support of hybrid workforces, state and local IT teams are under pressure to reduce help desk volume and improve service delivery. Digital employee experience platforms are emerging as a way to shift from reactive support to proactive IT operations by providing real-time insight into device, application and network performance. By connecting DEX with IT service management automation, agencies can reduce downtime, improve employee productivity and deliver more responsive digital services. What Is Digital Employee Experience (DEX)? At a high level, DEX represents “the sum of all the… Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:10:21 -0400 Adam Stone https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/digital-employee-experience-why-government-shifting-proactive-it-perfcon https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/nonhuman-identity-risk-government-agencies Most state and local government cybersecurity programs have gotten stronger at managing people. Multifactor authentication, single sign-on and periodic access reviews are now common in many government environments. But the identities attackers may care about most are often the ones no one is watching closely enough: nonhuman identities. Nonhuman identities include service accounts, APIs, bots, automation scripts, certificates and AI agents that keep modern government systems running. In many environments, they already outnumber human users by a wide margin. They also tend to have long-lived… Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:19:04 -0400 Thomas Sinnott https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/nonhuman-identity-risk-government-agencies https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/how-ai-trism-can-be-applied-public-sector-perfcon As state and local governments move generative artificial intelligence projects from experimentation into production, many are discovering traditional governance, and cybersecurity models are not enough to manage AI’s risks. AI systems introduce concerns that go beyond conventional IT security, including model hallucinations, biased outputs, poisoned training data and autonomous AI agents acting unpredictably. Those challenges are driving interest in AI TRiSM, short for AI trust, risk and security management. Coined by Gartner, AI TRiSM is designed to help organizations ensure AI systems are… Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:42:39 -0400 Jessica Balen https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/how-ai-trism-can-be-applied-public-sector-perfcon https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/ai-exposes-limits-perimeter-based-security-state-and-local-government The recent report “Beyond Generation: The Rise of Agentic AI in State Government” by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers highlights how state and local governments are rapidly scaling generative artificial intelligence and beginning to explore agentic AI. At the same time, the technology itself is advancing just as quickly. Models such as Anthropic’s Mythos are demonstrating the ability to identify vulnerabilities and accelerate exploitation workflows — capabilities that could help under-resourced critical infrastructure sectors surface weaknesses they have struggled… Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:55:19 -0400 Adam Ford https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/ai-exposes-limits-perimeter-based-security-state-and-local-government https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/qa-why-state-and-local-agencies-must-address-technical-debt-ai-era-accelerates As state and local governments look to modernize services and adopt artificial intelligence, many agencies are confronting a familiar obstacle: technical debt. Aging infrastructure, unsupported systems and outdated hardware are creating growing cybersecurity risks while limiting agencies’ abilities to deploy modern platforms and artificial intelligence-driven tools. Meghan Steele, vice president of U.S. Public Sector, SLED, Cisco, spoke with StateTech about why technical debt has become a strategic issue for government IT leaders, how agencies can prioritize modernization efforts and what… Sat, 06 Jun 2026 12:39:31 -0400 Mickey McCarter https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/06/qa-why-state-and-local-agencies-must-address-technical-debt-ai-era-accelerates https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/05/high-performance-computing-no-longer-out-reach-state-and-local-agencies High-performance computing has been around for decades, but its adoption in state and local government has long been limited by cost and complexity. Historically, deploying HPC required significant investments in specialized infrastructure and highly skilled personnel, resources that are often out of reach for many agencies. But advancements in on-demand computing models, user-friendly software tools and shared infrastructure ecosystems are changing that equation. Managed platforms, prebuilt applications and community HPC clusters are lowering barriers to entry and making advanced computing… Thu, 28 May 2026 14:11:35 -0400 Darren Pulsipher https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2026/05/high-performance-computing-no-longer-out-reach-state-and-local-agencies