The State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which has provided millions of dollars to shore up state and local cyber defenses since 2022, is unlikely to be renewed, said Doug Robinson, executive director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), in a webcast Tuesday.
Citing conversations with federal legislative leaders and observers, Robinson said the program will likely fall victim to budget cuts at the federal Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which manages the grant program.
LOSING A KEY RESOURCE
NASCIO and other government associations have lobbied heavily for reauthorization of the program, which expires this year, calling it a vital resource for protecting critical technology infrastructure. State CIOs Alan Fuller of Utah and Mark Raymond of Connecticut testified in March on the program’s importance before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.Those efforts appear to have been unsuccessful. “It’s unlikely to be reauthorized,” Robinson said.
In one bright spot for state and local IT leaders, however, Robinson said it seems unlikely that the Trump administration will attempt to claw back the final year of funding under the program, which was slated to deliver $100 million this year.
The program, created in 2021 by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, was designed to deliver $1 billion in cybersecurity funding to state governments over four years, with 80 percent of those dollars ultimately flowing to cities, counties and tribal governments. It has become an important resource for whole-of-state cybersecurity approaches, where states collaborate closely with local governments to strengthen cyber protection across jurisdictions.
