The California Department of Technology’s enacted budget for the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year, as documented in the state’s newly released enacted budget, is $880.4 million. (All numbers in this article are rounded.) That’s more than the $831.2 million Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed for CDT with the release of his budget in January, but less than the nearly $976.9 million he called for in the May Revision of that proposed budget. It’s substantially more than the $535.1 million the department received in the FY 2021-22 budget, but much less than the $4 billion CDT received in FY 2022-23.
What has changed? In this budget, there’s nothing from the federal Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund of 2021 — and a line item that drops from $2.3 billion in FY 2022-23 to zero in this budget. But that should change. In an email to Industry Insider — California, the California Department of Finance (DOF) indicated the remaining balance of the $2.3 billion from the Coronavirus Fiscal Recovery Fund in FY 2022-23, earmarked for CDT’s broadband middle-mile work, should be carried forward to FY 2023-24 during the state’s past year budget reconciliation process this fall. CDT has until Dec. 31, 2024, to obligate those funds, and until Dec. 31, 2026, to liquidate them, DOF said. In an email to Industry Insider, CDT said its budget team is now determining the appropriate 2023-24 FY carryover. Somewhat similarly, CDT’s enacted FY 2022-2023 budget also showed zero for FY 2022-23 — and $3.25 billion on that line in FY 2021-22. The enacted FY 2023-24 budget shows $19.8 million in federal coronavirus relief funds in 2021-22.
Also missing is many millions in support for CDT from the state’s General Fund. The FY 2023-24 enacted budget provides $389 million to CDT from the General Fund. That’s a decrease of $653 million from the $1.04 billion CDT received from the General Fund in FY 2022-23 — but, again, budget numbers are subject to change. In CDT’s enacted 2022-23 FY budget, it had been set to receive $68.8 million from the General Fund in FY 2021-22, which had then only recently ended. CDT’s 2023-24 FY enacted budget, which comes more than a year after the end of FY 2021-22, reflects it received just $36.1 million in FY 2021-22. CDT’s enacted 2023-24 FY budget has considerable good news, however. Areas of approved funding include:
- $1.2 million and three positions for “Digital Identification Continuation.” This stems from a budget change proposal (BCP) in which CDT sought the $1.2 million and two positions be renewed in FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25 to “launch and maintain planned and existing pilot partner integrations”; evaluate and implement additional features; scale the solution to other state entities; and to “provide a blueprint for privacy-centered SSO services.” That’s a reference to single sign-on, generally, a statewide digital ID and the ability for residents to be able to access any state service via a single logon — eliminating the need for individual sign-ons and passwords for different state entities.
- $3.4 million and three positions for the California Cybersecurity Integration Center. In a BCP, CDT, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, the California Military Department and the California Highway Patrol jointly sought $28.7 million from the General Fund ongoing and 17 positions to enable the center to help the state combat cyber threats.
- $2.96 million for an intrusion detection and prevention system. That’s precisely the amount CDT had sought in a BCP to upgrade the state’s intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems. The upgrades are necessary, per the BCP, for California to “continue to provide a frontline defense against malicious actors.” The funding, the BCP said, needs to be linked to the existing and future growth of the state’s network, noting a fundament of “network-based security” — one that’s standard practice for all large enterprise networks — is that tools match the network in “speed, capacity and performance.”
- $840,000 for a broadband communication report. In a BCP, CDT sought $840,000 in FY 2023-24 for the professional and consulting services it will need to establish the Broadband Access Point Investment Acceleration Study Act of 2022 and support the mandates of state Senate Bill 717. Newsom signed the bill, from state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, in September; it gave CDT until May 1, 2024, to take input from state entities and stakeholders for a report to legislative committees identifying the barriers, opportunities, investment and building around broadband access points on private and government structures and property. The report also has to identify barriers and opportunities around access to mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure by low-income tribal, urban and rural customers and underserved areas; and it has to provide recommendations for accelerating broadband deployment to these customers and areas.
