San Diego County, California

San Diego County is the local government for roughly 3.3 million residents — California's second-most-populous county, behind only Los Angeles — and one of the largest public-sector technology buyers in the state. Its technology is coordinated centrally by the County Technology Office (CTO), which is distinctive for a long-running outsourced operating model: rather than running most IT in-house, the county delivers help desk, applications, desktop, network, and data-center services through an outsourced contract (currently held by Peraton, with roughly 300 contractor staff across those five service frameworks). The CTO sets strategy, governance, security, and AI policy while the prime contractor and subcontractors deliver day-to-day services.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted the FY2026-27 budget of about $9.16B all-funds on June 25, 2026 — roughly a 6% (~$522M) increase over 2025-26, effective July 1, 2026.

For a Dell SLG seller, the defining dynamic is the once-in-a-decade re-compete of the county's primary IT services contract: the county issued a Request for Information ahead of a competitive process for a new agreement expected to start around 2028, and has signaled it may move from a single prime to multiple vendors. That re-compete, the centralized CTO buying center, and an active AI-governance push are the near-term shapers of how and through whom hardware, infrastructure, and security dollars flow.

San Diego County's FY2026-27 budget is about $9.16B all-funds, unanimously adopted by the Board of Supervisors on June 25, 2026 (effective July 1), up roughly 6% (~$522M) over the 2025-26 budget; the CAO first released a ~$9.1B recommended budget on May 18, 2026 and revised it upward via a 'change letter.' IT spend isn't published as a single public line — much of it is embedded in the outsourced IT services contract and in the budgets of the operating groups the CTO serves (Health & Human Services, Public Safety, Land Use, Finance & General Government), so the buying signal sits in the contract re-compete and in group modernization plans rather than a standalone IT appropriation.

• IT is delivered largely through an outsourced services contract rather than a single large in-house IT general-revenue line — the contract value and its re-compete are the dominant spend signal.
• Program and modernization dollars sit with the operating business groups (HHSA, Public Safety, Land Use & Environment, Finance & General Government) — map the funded group initiative, not just the CTO.

Selling to San Diego County runs through the Department of Purchasing & Contracting, which manages solicitations and vendor registration via its BuyNet portal — and, critically for IT, through the prime IT outsourcing contract under which much delivery flows. Two paths shorten the cycle: the county's use of cooperative purchasing (riding awards another public agency already competed) and California statewide leveraged agreements the county can buy off without a fresh RFP.