{"id":71893,"date":"2025-07-15T18:30:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=71893"},"modified":"2025-07-15T18:30:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:30:40","slug":"slcgp-cyber-funding-state-ai-accessibility-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/slcgp-cyber-funding-state-ai-accessibility-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news, bad news for state and local cyber grant funding, says NASCIO director"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s good news and bad news for proponents of the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, the $1 billion tranche of funding designed to shore up digital defenses in local governments across the country, a state technology association director said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news, said Doug Robinson, executive director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, is that it appears the SLCGP will not see its final year of funding clawed back \u2014 \u201cthe states may get their final portion,\u201d Robinson said. The bad news, he said, is that the program appears unlikely to see reauthorization under the current presidential administration, which continues to eliminate funding across a broad array of programs, including the Department of Homeland Security and its cybersecurity division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s important to our local government folks, because 80% of those dollars are passed down to local governments for cybersecurity,\u201d Robinson said during a webinar hosted Tuesday by the nonprofit Public Technology Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last April, NASCIO representatives testified before a House cybersecurity subcommittee urging the program\u2019s reauthorization. Alan Fuller, Utah\u2019s CIO, told lawmakers<\/a> that \u201calmost every state who has implemented funding from this program has seen some examples of tangible success in improving their cybersecurity posture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numerous state IT leaders have told StateScoop they\u2019re disappointed<\/a> by the prospect of the program\u2019s funding not being renewed, or even clawed back. And with just $1 billion spread across 50 states, dispersed over four years, it was seldom considered an adequate solution to the recurring issue of defending poorly funded schools, law enforcement agencies, local governments and utilities against sophisticated nation-state attackers. Many had hoped to see the program expanded to meet the size of the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe word of the year so far for 2025 is \u2018uncertainty,\u2019 for state and local IT,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cA lot of the federal funding has either already been cut or is at risk for some of these programs, and a lot of these programs, particularly in areas like cybersecurity and health and human services, they are in the devolution stage, pushing back down to the states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson, whose association represents the top technology officials in the state governments, also shared preliminary data for an annual membership survey that covers a swath of other IT issues, including web accessibility and AI. States, and larger local governments, are required by next April to meet certain accessibility standards<\/a>, such as making their PDFs readable by assistive devices like screen readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The association\u2019s latest survey data shows that some states might not make the deadline. About half of those who responded said their plan is \u201cin progress\u201d to meet the latest web standards, while only 2% have fully implemented their plans. About one-third are still developing their plans, 2% have no plan, 6% have a plan but haven\u2019t implemented it, while 4% were \u201cunsure\u201d of the project\u2019s status in their state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASCIO also collected data on what its membership is doing with generative artificial intelligence, perhaps the fastest evolving technology in state government. Robinson pointed to data from the National Council of State Legislatures<\/a> showing that hundreds of bills are being introduced, with those seeking to regulate the private sector being the most common, followed by those seeking to regulate government use, health and education. He also cited states\u2019 recent victory<\/a> in removing a proposed moratorium on state AI law enforcement from the federal budget reconciliation bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside most states, chief information officers are keen to see how the latest large language models can save agencies time and expense. Early survey data Robinson shared shows that generative AI is being used or considered, most commonly, for meeting transcription, cybersecurity operations, document generation and management, and software code generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while 90% of state IT officials surveyed said their state is running at least one generative AI pilot project, and nearly half said they\u2019re operating an AI \u201csandbox,\u201d where technologies can be tested, only 23% said they have dedicated funding for AI. When asked about the focus of their AI initiatives, ethical and safety considerations ranked at the top for state officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s relatively slow-go, with some vanguards who are out there already in production,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cBut for the most part, the states are taking a relatively cautious approach to this because of some of the unknowns, but they also know there\u2019s a tremendous opportunity out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASCIO’s executive director said the remainder of the $1 billion in the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program probably won’t get clawed back, but the program probably won’t get reauthorized either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":34047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20646],"tags":[234,608,5272,5550,14453,16536,24209,24678,25579],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-71893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-nascio","tag-doug-robinson","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-accessibility","tag-grant-funding","tag-cybersecurity","tag-web-standards","tag-state-and-local-cybersecurity-grant-program","tag-slcgp","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nGood 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