Government Technology/David Kidd
McCarville has been serving as the state’s CIO since his appointment in April, filling an opening left by the February retirement of longtime state CIO Ed Toner.
As McCarville explained, the two CIOs held the same title, but were responsible for two different missions. Toner was charged with centralizing the state’s data and infrastructure, while McCarville’s focus is on innovation.
This work has started at the organizational level, with the addition of three new departments focused on web services, cybersecurity, and data analytics and AI.
Web services’ work is focused on moving the Nebraska.gov domain, and the 1,500 websites behind it, to an internally managed team after being handled by an external vendor for more than two decades. The primary reasons for the shift are saving the state money and improving the user experience.
In cybersecurity, Nebraska is expanding its team and building a Joint Cybersecurity Operations Command Center that will work with state agencies, educational institutions and local governments to improve the state's overall security posture.
Finally, the new department for data analytics and AI will be led by the state chief data officer, a role created this year; this work aims to help improve data governance.
McCarville said the state's IT agency reorganization marks its first major changes in 20 years, restructuring departments and expanding the number of department heads who directly report to the CIO.
As the state is building up these three new departments and restructuring, it is also undertaking mainframe modernization. Nebraska has been on a mainframe since the 1960s, the CIO explained, and while it is still functioning well, the state wants to explore more modern capabilities for computing business processes.
These initiatives are complex ones, with the goal of positively impacting Nebraska residents; so, to achieve them, the state is increasing its staff. In doing so, leaders are rethinking their approach to hiring — which is critical, McCarville said, noting he inherited a workforce of which 37 percent are currently able to retire. And because of the modernization initiative, current employees will need to be reskilled. As a solution, officials are working to hire early-career talent, in the form of interns from universities and community colleges throughout the state.
This approach should also help combat a common challenge for state government: Public-sector salaries often lag behind those in the private sector. By hiring and training young people who are early in their career, the state can maintain a capable workforce. And while those individuals may be able to find higher paying jobs in another sector, Nebraska plans to take ownership of the value public-sector jobs offer: the ability to make an impact.
The state will cover employees’ tuition costs, McCarville added, which is an area in which private-sector companies may not be able to compete.
“We’re hoping that those are anchor points for retention moving forward with early talent,” he said.
The state’s structural reorganization and workforce capacity building are laying the foundation for further innovation, including around emerging technologies. McCarville’s background in artificial intelligence (AI) — his doctorate degree focused on applied AI and business intelligence — has shaped his perspective to AI in the public sector. He is also a member of the AI Business and Industry Leadership Team at the National Applied AI Consortium. His AI expertise, he said, goes back decades before the rise in interest ushered in by the emergence of generative AI.
“So, what I know is that AI is dangerous,” McCarville said, underlining the importance of leadership that understands AI’s error rate and risk for bias, which in large part comes from the data behind these systems. In some government use cases, AI has been used in health care and social services, and incorrectly weighted variables have led to discriminatory outcomes.
“That’s one thing that I’m very careful to not do in the state of Nebraska,” he said, indicating through his position as chair of the Nebraska Information Technology Commission, he is able to help inform policy — including a recently implemented AI guardrail policy.
He explained that, while other states may be further ahead in the way of effective data governance, Nebraska’s new chief data officer post is intended to help create a portfolio of cost-efficient platforms that will allow the state to centralize and clean up its data.
“That will give us that solid foundation for actually leveraging AI use cases,” he said, arguing this foundation is the first step to successful AI planning and implementation.
The state’s governor takes a business-minded approach to state government, in which the state can analyze whether spending is creating the highest possible impact, McCarville explained. So, while major projects like modernization and reorganizing may involve a lot of effort and time on the front end, they will ultimately save the state money and increase efficiencies.
