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Newsom’s Proposed Budget Calls for Cybersecurity, Tech Investment

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget commits $50 million to cybersecurity and would revive at least one key technology project that was postponed last year.

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Buoyed in part by a quicker than expected economic rebound from COVID-19 and revenues that are nearly where they were pre-pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $227.2 billion proposed 2021-2022 Fiscal Year state budget is about 12 percent larger than the state’s approved $202.1 billion FY 2020-2021 budget. It’s even about two percent larger than Newsom’s proposed $222.2 billion FY 2020-2021 budget — released before COVID-19 set in — though it’s subject to change ahead of the constitutional June 15 deadline for the Legislature to approve a budget.

What’s in it for IT and innovation vendors? Near the end of his remarks at a nearly three-hour virtual news conference Friday, Newsom emphasized the need to continue improving government efficiency “substantively and then address the issue of bringing services in the state into the digital age” before highlighting several areas of interest for technology companies.

“I wish I could just go like this and DMV’s upgraded, EDD’s upgraded — name it — CARE, the whole system. We’ve inherited stuff going back to the ’70s. … So, we have a lot of work to do to bring government into the digital age,” Newsom said. Among the takeaways:

  • The proposed budget commits $50 million to cybersecurity, Newsom said, noting: “… we’re doing cybersecurity audits across the spectrum, every single state department.” The proposed departmental budget for the California Department of Technology (CDT) is nearly $493 million, a roughly 12 percent increase from its approved FY 2020-2021 budget of $440.1 million. That includes $21 million in General Fund monies to pay for 49 existing Office of Information Security positions that were previously funded by the Technology Services Revolving Fund. Per the budget: “The change in funding will sustain the Audit Program’s standard four-year audit cycle without cost recovery ramifications to affected state entities.”
  • According to Newsom’s proposed budget, CDT’s FYI 2020-2021 approved budget has since declined to nearly $433.8 million. CDT spokesman Bob Andosca said via email that that reduction is “a result of annual personal services drills,” or employer retirement rate contribution adjustments, furloughs and employee compensation adjustments. Andosca said the increase in CDT’s proposed 2021-2022 budget is also a result of annual personal services drills and “adjustments for Budget Change Proposals.” (Techwire will examine technology and innovation initiatives in departmental-level proposed budgets in a series of future articles.)
  • Newsom also referenced the recent spate of federal-level cybersecurity incidents, pointing out that the state last year funded the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) — a spend reflected in a Budget Change Proposal of nearly $1.3 million. That helped account for a nearly 8.7 percent increase in CDT’s budget, from nearly $402 million in FY 2019-2020 to $440.1 million in FY 2020-2021, with rounding. Newsom called Cal-CSIC’s funding “just in time with some of the revelations of what occurred federally, of which we were not immune as a state to its impact.”
    “So, cybersecurity is still top of mind; we want additional investment in that space,” he added. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office’s Overview of the Governor’s Budget, funding Cal-CSIC and an information security audit program via the General Fund will require 21 ongoing positions. In response to a question from Techwire, California Department of Finance Director Keely Bosler said the aim is for CDT to be “able to really get in and spot problems before they occur,” adding: “In the recent years, there’s been a lot of triage and emergencies that the Department of Technology has moved in on and has supported, but we want to make sure that they are also having a proactive ability to get in there.”
  • The budget also proposes spending an additional $1 billion in support of “a coordinated forest health and fire prevention strategy that maximizes technology and science-based approaches to protect state forestlands.” This would include one emergency preparedness project eliminated from last year’s budget, Newsom said: the use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to better inform wildfire preparedness and response and “really map and research our fire-prone areas.” In last year’s proposed budget, Newsom called for funding the project with $80 million from the General Fund.
  • The state is also focused on not just moving services online, but meeting consumers where they are, regardless of device. Newsom highlighted the Office of Digital Innovation created two years ago, and which onboarded its inaugural director in May, saying the desire is for the office to “start sprinting,” and “looking at more consumer-based services, consumer-based interfaces, meeting people where they are — meaning taking government services not just online but getting in people’s hands, in their devices … .” These, he said, run “from search to suggest,” and include “reminder prompts, all kinds of new strategies, new ways of thinking about technology.”
Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.