Finances, cybersecurity top tech priorities in state, local government, new survey shows

Reducing costs and improving cybersecurity ranked as the top two concerns of chief technology decision makers in state and local governments, according to survey results published last week by the professional services firm Ernst & Young.

The results, which drew from a survey of 300 state and local government officials whose jobs involve making decisions about how to allocate IT resources, also showed that updating old systems is a key concern, though 7 in 10 polled said they believe such modernization efforts are too costly.

Financial concerns extended across a range of policy areas. Sixty-one percent cited worries of their agencies becoming obsolete without a greater emphasis on working with the private sector more, but roughly the same number said working with private businesses is too challenging to be worth the effort, citing “barriers” to collaboration.

They named training and resources for how to use new technologies, along with resources for working with the private sector as potentially useful tools to work between private industry and government.

Some state and local government IT leaders have said in recent months that they’re concerned about their organizations’ budget shortfalls, which, combined with federal funding cuts, paint an uncertain future spending on IT. Casualties are broad, from buying the latest automation technologies to starting new projects designed to update old systems.

According to the EY survey, though, AI remains in good favor. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said they believe generative artificial intelligence tools will be a top technology used in their organizations in the next five years.