It’s not easy to hold on to top government officials, particularly in professions that are in high private sector demand. But 2023’s Chief Information Officer turnover was particularly startling with 23 top level transitions. That’s “double the ordinary,” according to Doug Robinson, executive director of NASCIO, the National Association of State CIOs.

Robinson told us that he was startled at the number of new CIOs coming into office. This kind of turnover is expected when there are many new governors, as there were in 2019. But in 2023, there were only nine. The median tenure of state government CIOs that NASCIO calculated at year’s end was just 20 months. 

“Most were departing to the private sector,” according to Robinson, which is certainly no surprise given the fact that private firms typically pay a lot more than states. Two of the 23 departing CIOs retired – those in Alabama and Colorado.

Our guess is that the huge turnover in 2023 is an anomaly. This year, barring unexpected changes, will see only one new governor – in Louisiana, where Jeff Landry was sworn into office on Sunday, January 7.

The departure of the CIO in that state took place at the end of last week, with the retirement of Richard “Dickie” Howze, who was CIO for an unusual ten plus years. That brings the median CIO tenure down to 19 months as of January. (NASCIO calculates CIO median tenure on a monthly basis.)

One additional CIO fact: The current record holder in the job is Connecticut’s Mark Raymond, who has held the office for 12.6 years, according to Robinson.

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