Nebraska officials have spent 2025 focused on laying the groundwork to advance IT talent pipelines, AI implementation and more in 2026 — and on reducing IT costs while doing so.

State CIO Matthew McCarville was tapped to lead Nebraska IT in 2024, in part with the goal of delivering cost savings to taxpayers. He views diversity, in a broad sense, as a mindset through which to find new technology solutions and talent.

Nebraska IT is in a position to modernize now, McCarville said, and that is in part a result of IT work in recent years. When he came to the state, systems were almost entirely on-premise mainframe. Since his arrival, work has begun to get the state off mainframe and into a cloud environment in the next calendar year; a vendor selection is expected in January. That will be key to state adoption of emerging technologies like AI.

“[The cloud environment] enables us to leverage all of that data in a new way we’ve never been able to before,” he said, explaining that using AI on an on-premise mainframe is “cost-prohibitive.” Now, state data can be used more effectively, enabling predictive analytics and AI in a cost-effective way.

The other piece of the AI puzzle is the skillset needed to implement it effectively. In Nebraska, roughly one-third of full-time employees qualified for retirement about a decade ago, according to McCarville, so the talent question is a high priority.

The state has a Data and AI Center of Excellence in Omaha, which enables officials to launch an internship initiative as an early talent pipeline for people who may not have worked with state government. The internship is expected to launch “full-bore” in January, and the first-ever statewide IT apprenticeship program is expected to arrive in 2026.

The apprenticeship program is GI Bill-qualified, so its funding will support the state’s collaboration with educational entities to train exiting military members — and the broader public — on AI, data and cybersecurity. The program is also intended to encourage people to stay in Nebraska.

These initiatives, McCarville said, aim to help the state address modernization needs while dealing with a soon-to-retire workforce, cost-effectively.

Part of modernization is implementing a mindset shift to one that is more forward-looking, he said. For example, rather than remaining entrenched in vendor agreements created 20 years ago, state IT is diversifying its ecosystem and moving away from such long-term relationships.

Diversifying vendors does require knowledge about more products, but it better positions the state to tackle new projects by being able to work with the lowest-cost provider. This shift is not a critique of previous vendors, McCarville said, but reflects meeting modern needs.

The state launched its first Joint Security Operations Center in 2024, powering a whole-of-state model through which state IT officials serve all 93 counties and their cities, plus more than 250 K-12 supporting organizations, governor’s cabinet agencies, and non-cabinet boards, agencies and commissions.

“So, we are building a kind of ‘Field of Dreams’ for cyber,” said McCarville of the state’s approach — creating the infrastructure in an effort to attract organizations to participate.

There has been much discussion of potential changes at the federal level that could affect state cybersecurity funding, but McCarville said state cybersecurity must rely on sustainable funding sources — and federal funding is not always that. He said he views federal funding as an “added bonus” for state cybersecurity.

Although the state is investing in IT, doing so in a cost-efficient way is a priority to address budget constraints. The state Legislature is facing a $471 million deficit in the annual budget, and the governor has established a goal for cabinet agencies to cut $500 million a year over the next two years.

The Nebraska Office of the CIO (OCIO) is in a unique position because rather than receiving a general fund appropriation, agencies pay for its services from general funds they receive. Still, OCIO is reducing its rates and expenses to offer them discounts — cutting $2.5 million in annual recurring overhead so far, with the goal of reaching $13 million. This was not mandated, but is OCIO’s way of helping the state address the deficit.

“Cutting dollars in IT doesn’t always end up having an added benefit,” McCarville said. “But we are trying very hard in modernization, which typically costs more money, to lower our expenses — but yet modernize and do all of these initiatives at the same time.”

John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, will serve another two years at the helm after members re-elected him this month. He’s seen a lot of change in agriculture since 1990, but some things have stayed relatively the same, such as the price of a bushel of corn. Nebraska Public Media’s Jackie Ourada spoke with Hansen on “All Things Considered” about the state of agriculture, starting with how farmers are feeling about President Trump’s new $12 billion relief package that aims to offset damage done by tariffs.

Hansen: It plays to real mixed reviews for the folks who know how much money they lost in the first place thanks to the tariffs, which is somewhere, the Farm Bureau estimates, between $34 billion and $44 billion. We think $40 billion is a pretty good number. So, if you just lost $40 billion when you are already struggling financially, and you are already having to restructure your your farm loans to try to come up with more equity to replace the cash flow that didn’t work, and you already had done all that … So you lose $40 billion worth of value, and you get $12 billion paid back in some sort of fashion — not yet clear, who gets that. That $11 billion actually goes to the 20 crops, and then an additional $1 billion goes to specialty crops, so we’re certainly not going to be made whole. It’s better than a jab in the eye with a sharp stick, but not as good as being made whole.

Ourada: Farmers are, in Nebraska for the most part, going to, according to some of the economic surveys, benefit quite a lot from government payouts this year. So, I guess it’s difficult for me to hear that you guys have had a lot of calls about farmers being upside down, when the overall picture is that farmers are going to end up with a lot of economic benefits from the payouts from the government.

Hansen: So when you have commodity prices that are this low, and the reason you’re getting additional economic disaster assistance is because if you look at those prices, it’s a train wreck, a complete train wreck. So you’re helping try to offset that through some sort of federal economic assistance. But when you add that amount of assistance with the amount of shortfall that exists in commodity prices that tells you how far out of whack our farm policy and our trade policy is. We’re, unfortunately, in a situation where we’re forced to accept that those additional payments, although all farmers would rather get paid in the marketplace rather than through the mailbox with assistance from their tax-paying cousins and friends and brothers and sisters. And so we need to rethink about what we’re doing when we’re the world’s largest food producing nation, and we have a domestic farm policy and trade policy that puts family farmers and ranchers out of business, and that’s what we’re doing right now. Then it’s time to say, you know, big picture here, this is not working. The lack of stability is really difficult to navigate for somebody who’s on the receiving end of prices.

Ourada: What specifically would you like to see changed?

Hansen: Well, the whole structure. We don’t have really stability. We don’t have dependability. We don’t have any way to begin to cover cost of production. The cost of production that we have, just continues to go up and up and up every year. And yet, commodity prices are not tied to anything that reflects our cost of production. You can’t [say to] General Motors or Ford or or any major manufacturer, ”We want you guys to go out there and incur additional costs of operating every year. But we want you to sell your your end finished product for about the same thing that you know folks were buying it for 3030, years ago or more.” Their cost to the customer has to reflect their cost of production. And in the case of agriculture, farmers are price takers. We’re not price makers. We don’t set the price of what we produce, which is why the private, public partnership between agriculture and Congress needs to be rethought.

Ourada: I have a few friends who farm. They’re around my age, 30, and they are constantly griping, I would say is a good word about dad or grandpa not handing over the farm keys to them. And I’m thinking as you you’ve been with the Farmers Union now since 1990. What does your succession plan look like to the Farmers Union? What does the Farmers Union look like after John Hansen steps down?

Hansen: Well, that’s a great question. It’s one that’s an active discussion. Relative to farmers union, I made it clear at last this last year’s convention held a couple weeks ago, that we’re certainly looking for new folks to pick up the reins if they want to. And there’s a lifetime of opportunity and and in serving agriculture, I happen to think I have the best job in the state. So give me a call.

This interview has been edited for length.