Amid an onslaught of cyberattacks against the education sector, IBM on Wednesday announced six school systems that’ll receive a total of $3 million of the computing giant’s cybersecurity services. The six K-12 districts, which span from New York to California, were selected from a pool of more than 250 that applied to receive up to $500,000 worth of consultations from the company’s cybersecurity division. Benjamin Freed covers the news.

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Biden budget proposes 2.7% average pay increase for federal employees

President Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget proposes a 2.7% average pay increase for government employees in an effort to rebuild the federal workforce. If enacted, the plan would in total boost the pay and benefits of civilians working in government agencies by $16.7 billion, or 4.4%, to $396.6 billion next year. The proposal comes amid a push by the Biden administration to walk back changes made to federal employment under the Trump administration, including the curtailment of collective bargaining rights and the weakening of anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ employees. Dave Nyczepir has more at FedScoop.

Pandemic was a 'tipping point' for government modernization

The COVID-19 pandemic prodded governments into a “tipping point” that brought long-overdue digital transformations, yet also revealed the distances many still have to go, according to a new report this week from the consulting firm Deloitte. The study, which queried 800 government officials from eight countries including the United States, found that many agencies are in a transition period between “doing digital” — using digital technologies to augment legacy systems — and “becoming digital,” in which they follow a mixture of physical and virtual processes. Ben has the latest.

Collaboration is key for state broadband officials

State broadband officials looking to provide connectivity to their residents as the COVID-19 pandemic resides need to be open to collaboration, a panel of three state leaders said at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers summit on Wednesday. Facilitating broadband adoption “takes a village,” according to Colorado CIO Tony Neal-Graves, who said that even the influx of federal stimulus money over the past year isn’t enough, on its own, to close the digital divide. But state agencies, working independently of their private sector, nonprofit and local partners, won’t be able to connect everybody if they don’t ask for help, said Neal-Graves, a former director of his state’s broadband office. Ryan Johnston looks closer.

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Program Specialist (Resilience) |Department of Homeland Security

The Program Specialist will support the CBP Watch's mission to provide vital services to CBP through incident and event information reporting and sharing, emergency management planning and response, and through personnel recovery preparation, education, and training. The Continuity Branch applies essential elements of continuity to the identification, prioritization, execution, and resiliency of CBP mission essential functions, necessary for uninterrupted operations during an emergency. See this job and others here.