LEXINGTON, Ky., Tuesday, April 15 – The National Association of State Chief Information Officer’s (NASCIO) is honored to announce that Jim Sills, NASCIO Executive Committee Director and Delaware Cabinet Secretary and CIO, was appointed to serve as the new NASCIO representative to the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) Advisory Committee (GAC). Representing NASCIO, state CIOs have served on Global for more than a dozen years.

GAC operates under the support and leadership auspices of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Sills will serve alongside more than 30 independent organizations spanning the spectrum of justice- and public safety-interested constituencies. Member organizations participate in Global out of shared responsibility and a shared belief that, together, they can bring about positive change in interorganizational communication and data sharing. 

“It’s an honor to be appointed to serve on the GAC,” said Sills. “I look forward to learning from other members, and sharing some insights and best practices on technologies, such as cloud, mobile, security, and business intelligence. As the NASCIO representative, it’s my goal to help drive the conversation on how to improve data sharing among this outstanding group of federal criminal justice and public partners.”

The GAC advises the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer—the U.S. Attorney General—on information sharing issues. The GAC also assists member organizations and the people they serve through a series of important initiatives, making the Committee a critical voice across all justice-interested disciplines, at every level of government. Global recommends the development and promulgation of technology standards and architectures such as the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). NASCIO is an ardent supporter of NIEM and advocates for its adoptions at the state and local level. See NASCIO’s statement of support here.

LEXINGTON, Ky., Wednesday, March 5, 2014 — States and local government are joining up to save money and leverage economies of scale in operations to deliver better government services. The recipe for successful cross-jurisdictional collaborations have been explored by NASCIO in its report titled, “What Makes Collaborative Initiatives Work?” Often the primary incentive to forming a collaborative is cost sharing. NASCIO continues to build its portfolio of publications and references with a new release highlighting cost sharing. A list of essential design elements for cost sharing is presented along with examples of successful collaboratives. The publication is available at www.nascio.org/publications

“NASCIO is a strong proponent for cross jurisdictional collaboratives. We believe collaborative arrangements will be successful if they are starting with the right vision and then develop an architecture that is deliberately designed to support that vision. One of the foundational elements of that architecture is cost sharing,” said Calvin Rhodes, co-chair of the NASCIO Cross-Jurisdictional Collaboration working group and chief information officer for the state of Georgia.

Cost sharing must be designed for sustainability, anticipating ongoing change. That change will include changes in demands for services. That demand includes demand for new services as well as changing demands for existing services. There may be changes in costs along the entire supply chain, and there may be new methods for delivering services. These dynamics require an ongoing discipline or process for anticipation, evaluation and implementation of necessary changes to maintain an equitable and effective cost sharing model.

“The most effective collaboratives are arrangements that are successful at partnering. That partnering aspect requires understanding the motivations and needs of the member organizations,” said Brenda Decker, co-chair for the NASCIO Cross-Jurisdictional Collaboration working group and chief information officer for the state of Nebraska. “Those member needs are often met through non-financial contributions. An effective collaborative and an effective cost sharing model for supporting it will account for a variety of member contributions including in-kind contributions. We maintain a state-wide or often regional view of economics when we develop these types of comprehensive cost sharing models. A great example of partnering is our Network Nebraska Cost Recovery Model which is highlighted in this report.”

LEXINGTON, Ky., Wednesday, February 12 — NASCIO applauds the Administration for publishing a consensus-based, voluntary Cybersecurity Framework. The Framework provides states with a common platform on which to base strategic security decisions, allocate resources, and build defenses against both common and sophisticated attacks. The Framework provides a common language for all levels of government and their partners in the private sector to perform risk analysis and detail their security efforts.

Today’s release is a critical step in a process the President began a year ago when he signed an Executive Order that brought federal leadership to a major vulnerability in our national security infrastructure. The inclusion of a methodology to protect privacy and personal information is also valuable for states, which are responsible for storing sensitive information on citizens and businesses. This addition is a welcome refinement to the final framework.

Similarly to the private sector, state governments are at risk from a host of diverse and changing security threats that require a formal strategy, adequate resources, and constant vigilance. In response, states are actively working to increase their cyber readiness. Over three-quarters of states have adopted some cybersecurity framework based on national standards and guidelines, with the vast majority utilizing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards to some degree.

NASCIO thanks the Administration for the collaborative process that led up to the creation of the cybersecurity framework. Our members hope to continue to collaborate with NIST and the Department of Homeland Security to create a state and local government overlay for the cybersecurity framework that will provide additional specificity by including the federal laws and regulations with which states and localities must comply.

NASCIO will be encouraging states to adopt the framework as a common language in which to build a strategic cybersecurity plan that provides leadership and stakeholders a better understanding of the security stance within state governments.

This is not the end, but the beginning of a process, and both states and our federal partners still have significant work to do in this area. Advancing common security and information sharing, protocols, such as National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), will be important to securing public sector data while still allowing it to flow between various sectors of government. In addition, Congress and the Administration must work to reform the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). By streamlining requirements to meet end goals rather than checklists, we can provide greater services to citizens and more secure state data networks.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Thursday, January 23 — The National Association of State Chief Information Officer’s (NASCIO) released its 2014 federal advocacy priorities today. NASCIO’s advocacy goals for 2014 include: collaborating with the federal government on cybersecurity to secure the public sector; building a nationwide public safety broadband network; pushing greater information sharing among government entities; and, implementation of grant guidance reform.

The 2014 Federal Advocacy Priorities are now available https://www.nascio.org/advocacy/current/.

NASCIO’s 2014 advocacy goals are supported by four key issues that must be addressed to succeed in these areas: maturing identity management, building the public sector IT workforce, promoting common data standards, and collaboration on broadband.

“Information Technology is a rapidly evolving field,” explained NASCIO President Craig Orgeron, chief information officer for the state of Mississippi. “While progress was made in 2013 with the release of federal grant guidance reform and a sweeping Executive Order on cybersecurity, there is still a long road ahead. Congress has yet to act on this vital issue, and the Administration must continue to work with state partners to modernize and secure government information technology.”

State CIOs are also looking to continue their collaboration with the FirstNet Authority, responsible for building a nationwide public safety network for our first responders, and other federal partners, on building a nationwide public safety broadband communications network. “NASCIO hopes building a business plan with the states will be the number one priority for FirstNet in 2014,” said Mitch Herckis, director of Government Affairs for NASCIO. “It is the missing keystone and necessary next step towards the roll out of our nation’s largest infrastructure project since the Interstate System.”

NASCIO also hopes to highlight the need to build information sharing procedures and policies at all levels. Projects such as implementation of the voluntary cybersecurity framework and FirstNet will require a major effort to create consensus on how and when information is shared between government entities and private sector partners. Congress, the administration, state governments, and private sector partners will all need to work in partnership to build common languages and solutions in this field.

LEXINGTON, Ky., Thursday, December 12 — the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) today released the first in a series of issue briefs on Enterprise Portfolio Management. The publication is now available at www.nascio.org/publications/.

State CIOs are managing a growing and diverse set of investments, services and collaborative arrangements. Enterprise portfolio management (EPM) is a discipline that provides the tools and best practices necessary for doing this proactively and successfully. EPM provides a view into the enterprise – not only projects, but also services, operations, programs and resources. EPM essentially turns enterprise architecture into action. EPM involves many portfolios. The first portfolio that drives the others is the portfolio of issues that identifies, scores and prioritizes the very issues we’re trying to solve through projects, programs, management initiatives and operations.

“We’re kicking off our series on portfolio management and IT investment management with a foundational piece on issues,” said Jack Doane, co-chair for the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture and Governance Committee and director for the Information Services Division in Alabama. “Everything we do starts with a business need, or an issue. It is at that beginning where we need to initiate a discipline for evaluating and prioritizing the demand side. That is the issues portfolio. We need to be deliberate in deciding what to tackle – what to tackle alone – and what to tackle in collaboration with another agency or jurisdiction.”

“The state CIO manages a number of portfolios,” said Carolyn Parnell, co-chair for the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture and Governance Committee and chief information officer for the State of Minnesota. “While there may be some inconsistencies in how these portfolios are managed today, our ability to build discipline and consistency across the board is growing. Enterprise portfolio management is maturing. And we’ll see that maturity reflected in both the demand side and supply side of project management. As we consider options for delivering successful projects we also have more viable options today including cross-jurisdictional collaboration. These are all elements of the enterprise-wide portfolio.”