Washington, DC (July 27, 2010) - In a study released today by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), TechAmerica and Grant Thornton, state CIOs emphasized the need to upgrade IT governance and strengthen central IT organizations in order to achieve goals for enhanced services and new efficiencies under tightened budgets.

"State governments will continue to endure tough fiscal conditions, which makes the state CIO's job even more challenging. However, the results of the survey clearly indicate this situation presents opportunities for CIOs to execute on cost-saving strategies, innovative business models, and advance the use of emerging technologies" said Doug Robinson, Executive Director of NASCIO.

"State CIOs, and their partners in the private sector, have responded to tough economic conditions with strong efforts to reduce costs and consolidate services," said TechAmerica President and CEO Phil Bond. "We are pleased to collaborate with NASCIO and Grant Thornton on this survey, which sheds light on how CIOs around the country drive change in the way government works and enable states to do more with less. We agree with the CIOs that more needs to be done to encourage states to procure and deploy innovative IT solutions in cost-effective ways."

Hank Steininger, Managing Partner of Grant Thornton's Global Public Sector Practice, noted: "The results of this survey provide valuable insight to state government legislative and executive leadership as they formulate new budgets and enact policy changes in the coming months.  With 37 governors races this year the information presented in this survey makes available to the incumbents and candidates the candid thoughts of the IT leadership on the current status of state IT as well as ways to improve efficiencies and operations and produce cost savings for states.  Information technology is the enabler of government, in short, IT powers the business of government.  States spend a significant amount of money on improving existing and building new IT systems.  The results demonstrated in this report can be used to help drive new and better IT-related policies in the states."

Facing the expectation of lower IT budgets and increased demands for new IT-enabled services, CIOs are consolidating applications and data centers, rolling out shared services and managed services models, and embracing emerging technologies, such as cloud computing and social media. Key challenges facing the CIOs are IT governance, in which they often find an imbalance between accountability and authority, IT portfolio management, and procurement processes. In the 60% of states which have an active portfolio management methodology in place, CIOs gave those processes a middling "C" grade. Likewise, procurement processes were found wanting, as most State CIOs see the need for reforms that will align state IT procurement with commercially-oriented contracting practices. 

The survey addresses CIO views on IT portfolio management, IT investments and budgets, statewide IT business models, procurement, project management practices, and emerging technologies.

A full copy of the survey is available via the following link: http://www.techamerica.org/state-local