Big Story: Digital Equity Is Shifting from Funding to Execution Across Broadband, Literacy, and Safety
Key Takeaways
NDIAʼs 2025 Digital Inclusion Trailblazers list highlights 58 local governments across 25 states, signaling that digital equity work is becoming a repeatable local operating model.
Policy is moving upstream into the middle mile and downstream into schools, with new federal reauthorization efforts and a proposed Utah graduation requirement for digital literacy.
States are combining broadband expansion with resilience projects, such as Texas, which awarded a $29 million grant to extend fiber and strengthen flood monitoring infrastructure following the 2025 floods.
Recent digital equity updates show that the emphasis is on executing programs that can be staffed, governed, and sustained over time. Local governments play a central role in this transition. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance recognized 58 governments across 25 states for mature digital inclusion efforts and published an open inventory of nearly 900 shared resources. These include program designs, staffing models, and policy templates that reduce the cost of adoption for other cities and counties. The result is a growing baseline for what effective digital equity operations look like in practice.
Federal and state policy is reinforcing this execution focus. New legislation proposes extending middle-mile broadband funding, which addresses a persistent bottleneck in rural and underserved regions. Middle-mile infrastructure does not directly connect households but determines whether last-mile projects are financially viable and scalable.
Education policy is also entering the picture. Utah lawmakers are considering a graduation requirement for digital literacy that covers online safety, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and data privacy. The proposal emphasizes curriculum standards and accountability, which signals an expectation that digital skills become part of core education.
Several states are linking broadband expansion to resilience and safety outcomes. Texas awarded funding to expand rural connectivity alongside flood monitoring infrastructure, integrating fiber deployment with emergency preparedness. In Virginia, schools are responding to large-scale cyber incidents by formalizing internet safety governance and task forces.
Taken together, these developments show that governments are standardizing tools, aligning incentives, and embedding digital access and skills into existing systems. Progress now depends on how consistently these programs are run over time.
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Quick Hit News:
Battle Creek, Michigan, is launching MICH AIR with ResilienX to build BVLOS infrastructure for drones to operate remotely and autonomously. The project will support uses like medical deliveries, emergency response, building inspections, and land surveys.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is urging passage of a law requiring companies to quickly report cyberattacks and data breaches after Munson Healthcare disclosed a 2025 incident affecting over 100,000 patients through a third-party vendor. She says faster reporting would help the state warn the public sooner. The proposal, in Senate Bills 360-364, has passed the Senate and awaits House action.
New York City Public Schools turned a snowstorm closure into a remote- learning day for 500,000 students across more than 1,100 schools. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels said systems were tested to handle logins after past issues. City and school officials framed the decision as part of a longer-term approach to using remote learning as an operational fallback during weather disruptions rather than canceling school outright.
For the Commute:
The Honorable AI? Shlomo Klapper Talks Judicial Use of AI (Lawfare Podcast)
Shlomo Klapper, founder of Learned Hand, joins Kevin Frazier to discuss how AI decision-support tools could help overburdened state courts, manage heavy dockets without replacing judicial accountability, and what this shift means for legitimacy, due process, and access to justice as litigation becomes cheaper and more abundant.
Resources & Events:
📅 SITE 2026 (Philadelphia, PA - March 23-27, 2026)
SITE is the 37th annual conference of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education, bringing teacher educators and researchers together to share practical and research-driven work on instructional technology in teacher education and faculty development. Details →
📅 Billington State and Local Cybersecurity Summit (Washington, DC - March 9-11, 2026)
This summit brings together state and local government CIOs, CISOs, and security leaders to focus on the evolving cyber threat landscape, with sessions on ransomware defense, critical infrastructure protection, zero trust, AI-driven security risks, and coordination across federal, state, and local agencies. Details →
📊 Report Spotlight: CIO Open Recommendations (U.S. GAO)
This GAO report compiles CIO recommendations for the Office of Personnel Management, highlighting persistent gaps in cybersecurity controls, IT acquisition and management, and enterprise governance. GAO warns that delays in closing these recommendations, such as implementing full event logging, strengthening software and license management, and improving portfolio oversight, continue to expose OPM to operational risk and inefficiency. Read →
Insight of the Week:
Plan review backlogs are being framed as a leadership and visibility problem, with agencies turning to real-time data and performance insights to identify bottlenecks, rebalance workloads, and shorten approval timelines without sacrificing safety or code compliance. Read More →
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