“Everybody has to understand, at some level, the importance of data,” Rita Reynolds, chief information officer for the National Association of Counties told us for a column about data literacy that we wrote for Route Fifty.

Unfortunately, according to the National Association of State CIO’s 2023 State CIO Survey, only 16% of state chief information officers report that they have a formal data literacy/proficiency program for state employees with 84% answering no. 

With this in mind NASCIO pulled together a panel of state chief data officers who shared approaches and experiences with data literacy. A fascinating  March report from NASCIO. provides the highlights – and the reasons why it’s even more critical than ever for training in data literacy to be expanded on. “It is imperative that the state government workforce be data literate – that is to have a command of data management and an understanding that data is a critical state government asset,” according to the report.

This has been true for some time, but never more than now: “With the emerging use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the criticality of data quality becomes more profound,” according to the brief, “and the potential risk related to feeding GenAI applications with poor quality data is equally alarming. . . . ”

It might appear that nurturing a data literate workforce is primarily so that people in government are able to perform purely technical tasks well in fields like human resources, procurement, budgeting, and infrastructure.

But the necessity of this discipline goes beyond that and is a centerpiece of an efficient and effective organization. Says the NASCIO brief, “Analysis of state data uncovers insights that inform decision makers in every agency and at all levels of the state organization. Essentially every state employee is a decision maker that touches state data and as data stewards they should consider data to be one of their most enabling assets. Every employee should have a very high regard for and dependency on this most valuable resource. Essentially, every state employee has data stewardship included in their role.”

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