The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it will commit another $240 million in its eighth wave of the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) program support.

State and local agencies are faced with a perfect storm that is driving them straight to the cloud. With the Federal government mandating IT modernization across the Federal landscape and the increased need for improved citizen services due to the ongoing pandemic, state and local governments are turning to cloud capabilities and exploring their migration options to keep pace. But not all clouds are created equal, and government entities face many barriers on their journey to the cloud. MeriTalk recently sat down with Jason Wicker, lead architect, government services, and Joe Nanus, senior state and local government and education sales lead, at Rackspace Technologies to discuss how to overcome those barriers by working with a cloud advisor broker to save costs, support technology teams, and accelerate the move to the cloud.

The Northshore School District in Washington state is asking voters in the upcoming Feb. 8 election to approve two new levies and one bond, which would total roughly $700 million of new funding for the district.

In his first month on the job, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is already making a push to improve government efficiency by signing an executive order (EO) to consolidate all city technology agencies under a single authority, the Office of Technology and Innovation.

Northeastern Regional Information Center (NERIC) announced that it has contracted with Edupoint Educational Systems to offer the company’s Synergy Education Platform to NERIC member schools.

Amid the spike in cases of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that extends for the next two years the requirement adopted at the beginning of the pandemic that health benefits plans must reimburse health care providers for telehealth and telemedicine services at the same rate as in-person services, with limited exceptions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will allocate $1 billion in funding for the ConnectALL initiative, which her office described as “the largest ever investment in New York’s 21st-century infrastructure.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced today that it is committing more than $361 million in the latest wave of funding for the Emergency Connectivity Fund program, bringing the program’s total funding to nearly $4.2 billion.

Bloomberg Philanthropies awarded 10 cities a “What Works Cities Certification” in recognition of their “exceptional use of data to inform policy and funding decisions to improve residents’ lives.” The 10 cities are Baltimore, Md.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Chicago, Ill.; Denver, Colo.; Durham, N.C.; Evanston, Ill.; Long Beach, Calif.; Miami, Fla.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Salinas, Calif.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) plans to take up a proposal to require “nutrition labels” for broadband service at the commission’s public meeting set for Jan. 27.