Government groups call for $300M to fund cyber grant program
Yuichiro Chino via Getty Images
By
Chris Teale
Various state and local organizations urged the Senate in an open letter to appropriate the money for Fiscal Year 2027 to the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program.
Several state and local government groups called on the U.S. Senate to spend $300 million to fund a cybersecurity grant program in the coming fiscal year.
A joint letter from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the International City/County Management Association urged appropriators to approve the money for the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program for Fiscal Year 2027.
The letter is addressed to Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Katie Britt, R-Ala., who chair the Senate Appropriations Committee and its Subcommittee on Homeland Security, respectively, as well as Sens. Patty Murray,, D-Wash., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the committee and subcommittee’s ranking members.
In it, the groups said the $1 billion SLCGP has “evolved to become a vital tool” for cybersecurity across state, local, Tribal and territorial governments, and they argued the call for $300 million is “consistent with the average funding levels" in the 2021 infrastructure law that established the program.
“The program has helped state and local governments, particularly smaller and rural communities with limited resources, implement critical protections, including multifactor authentication, endpoint detection and response, identity and access management, cyber incident response planning, statewide risk assessments, cybersecurity training and shared security services,” the letter says. Spokespeople for all four Senate addressees did not respond to Route Fifty’s requests for comment.
The four-year cyber grant program received a temporary authority extension through September as part of a government funding deal last year. The House voted in November to approve the Protecting Information by Local Leaders for Agency Resilience — or PILLAR — Act, which would reauthorize the grant program for another 10 years. A companion bill is pending in the Senate with only a one-year extension, but with a $300 million appropriation, hence this letter’s request.
For its part, the government groups said that level of funding “represents a prudent investment in the security of America’s public infrastructure.” They also called for a long-term authorization of the program so that governments can plan for what’s next.
“States and local governments require certainty to develop multi-year cybersecurity strategies and make sustained investments in personnel, technology, and shared services. A long-term authorization will preserve and strengthen the federal-state-local partnership that has made SLCGP such a success,” the letter says.
State and local leaders have said consistently that the cyber grant program has helped them strengthen their cybersecurity postures, although they have acknowledged that much more work lies ahead, hence the need for extra funding.
“The scale, speed, and complexity of today’s threat environment require sustained funding, operational flexibility, and the ability to respond at the pace of emerging threats,” Tennessee Chief Information Officer Kristin Darby said in written testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation last month. “The State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program is one of the most effective tools available to strengthen our collective defense.”
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