Finance

Plus, advocates applaud federal efforts to extend the Affordable Connectivity Program, Empire State Development announces the members of its Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, and more.

ResourceX offers governments a way to budget based on strategy and outcomes instead of line items. Tyler Technologies announced a buyout of the company on the same day as a separate acquisition.

Completing an IT project can be slow and complicated — but before it even begins, the project approval itself can eat up months or years. Dan Kim has a proposal: Let's take some lessons from the TV show Shark Tank.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced $75 million in funding to combat the spike in hate speech and crime in the city. Funds will be used to provide new police technology and social media analysis, and more.

The Kanawha County Commission approved an almost $3 million purchase of body cameras, Tasers and license plate readers for the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office during its meeting late last week.

The Oklahoma Broadband Office received official notification from the U.S. Department of the Treasury of the allocation of $167.7 million through the American Rescue Plan Act's Capital Projects Fund for broadband expansion efforts.

The new HelpDesk AI from Springbrook Software is designed to help customers find information about HR, payroll, tax collection and other tools. This marks the latest use of ChatGPT in tech made for local government.

Spectrum will soon lay fiber-optic cables in parts of southern and eastern Bexar County that lack high-speed Internet access or broadband infrastructure. The county will spend more than $5 million on the effort.

The county has accepted a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to expand broadband access. The grant will help make broadband available to 2,986 unserved or underserved households.

Speakers at the recent Micromobility America conference in the Bay Area issued a resounding call for aggressive and continued investment in the sector — particularly from public sources.

The Appalachian Regional Commission's Partnerships for Opportunity, Workforce and Economic Revitalization program awarded the grant to Washington County as part of an effort to get some 10,000 unserved or poorly served households online.

The city will spend $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act money in an effort to help city employees return to the office early next year, almost three years since many were asked to work remotely amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New cameras and equipment will be coming to Danbury's downtown area, after the City Council agreed to accept a $100,000 donation to upgrade its existing and aging camera network. Not all welcome the upgrades.

Leaders in the Missouri county have approved $5 million in cybersecurity upgrades after hackers temporarily shut down law enforcement systems last month. The money will fund repairs, cloud technology and consulting costs.

The city of Sanibel and Lee County in Florida are set to participate in the Local Government Cybersecurity Grant Program, a $30 million initiative aimed at empowering local governments with cybersecurity solutions.

Some $3.1 million of the $6.3 million budget under consideration is slated for a project to install fiber-optic cables in the rural area between Ariel and Cougar. The project is currently in the engineering phase.

Federal funds are helping rural southwest Wisconsin expand access to Internet service. The Reedsburg Utility Commission received a $28 million loan in August for nine underground fiber-optic projects.

Independence police say they plan to outfit their officers with body cameras by January 2024 after the department received a grant from the Department of Justice that will pay for 200 body cameras and three additional positions.