Cities and counties expand skills of their technology teams to meet today’s cyberthreats

Government IT operations are vulnerable. More than a third of IT leaders in state and local governments say their number one challenge heading into 2024 is the possibility of a data breach as a result of inadequate staffing. These findings are from a recent survey from Ensono, a technology consulting and managed service provider.

Cities and counties need a variety of skills on their tech-buying and IT maintenance teams, says Dean Johnson, senior executive government advisor at Ensono. Johnson previously worked for more than two decades managing IT initiatives for the Georgia state government. His view: Cybersecurity experts are essential for safeguarding sensitive public sector data and are needed more than ever in local government workforces.

Johnson says local governments face several key challenges when they try to recruit, train and retain IT staffers. He says they “struggle to attract and retain qualified candidates due to comparatively lower salaries offered in the public sector as opposed to the private industry.” He points to other challenges:

• Inadequate training programs for existing staff members in government can hinder their ability to keep up with evolving technologies. This helps contribute to a skills gap.
• Problems with recruitment and retention of government workers further compound the issue of maintaining an adequate workforce.
• Jurisdictions lack a comprehensive strategy to address these concerns and ensure a skilled and motivated IT workforce in local government. They need a complete strategy to maintain appropriate staff counts to meet growing workloads.

Johnson says one way to meet these challenges is to develop a hybrid workforce leveraging public-private partnerships with managed service providers.

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