Cincinnati, Ohio

Overview

Cincinnati is Ohio's third-largest city (roughly 310,000 residents) and the urban core of the Cincinnati metro. It operates under a council-manager form of government: a directly elected Mayor (Aftab Pureval) and a nine-member City Council set policy, while a professional City Manager (Sheryl Long) runs day-to-day operations and the ~6,000-employee workforce.

Central technology is consolidated in the Enterprise Technology Solutions (ETS) department, which owns citywide IT strategy, infrastructure, enterprise applications, cybersecurity, emergency communications, and the regional law-enforcement data systems (RCIC/CLEAR).

For a Dell SLG seller, Cincinnati is a mid-market municipal account where buying decisions concentrate in ETS and the City Manager's office, purchasing runs through the city's Office of Procurement, and — like most Ohio public entities — cooperative and state contract vehicles are common paths to award.

 How this account buys
ETS is the technology buying center — IT Director Sean Ware and the Enterprise Infrastructure & Security division own infrastructure, security, and data-center decisions
City Manager Sheryl Long's office shapes what gets funded across ETS and the ~24 departments the Office of Procurement serves
Office of Procurement (Interim CPO Laura Castillo) runs solicitations; City Council sits behind budget adoption and larger contract approvals
Fastest compliant path: Ohio State Term Schedules / Cooperative Purchasing Program via OhioBuys, or national co-ops like Sourcewell/NASPO ValuePoint, rather than a full city RFP

Where Dell Can Play

Build the ETS relationship first — IT Director Sean Ware and the Enterprise Infrastructure & Security division are the buying center for ISG (servers/storage), endpoint, and security infrastructure refresh.
Confirm Dell coverage on Ohio state/cooperative contracts (and national co-ops the city permits) so there's a low-friction award path that avoids a full RFP.
Lead with efficiency and existing-footprint modernization, not net-new data-center expansion — the active data-center zoning restrictions and a tight FY27 General Fund both favor consolidation/refresh framing.
Tie a data and AI-readiness story to the open-data/analytics motion (CincyInsights, OPDA) — storage and compute that modernize civic data without triggering the data-center policy debate.
Track the FY26 government reorg to confirm which departments and budget owners survive consolidation before forecasting multi-department deals.

Budget & Fiscal

Cincinnati funds a sizable enterprise: the FY2026–2027 biennial budget runs more than $1.8B all funds, with the General Fund (the discretionary pool where most IT operating dollars sit) at roughly $593M. The city closed a ~$29.5M General Fund gap in the FY27 cycle largely through vacancy savings, which tends to tighten new discretionary spend.

$1.8B+

All-funds budget

FY2026–2027 biennial; ~$1.37B operating + ~$434M capital

~$593M

General Fund (FY27)

Discretionary operating pool; ~1/3 of the budget

~$29.5M

FY27 GF gap closed

Largely via vacancy savings — a headwind for new discretionary IT spend

ETS is funded as a citywide service department; specific IT line items live in the operating budget rather than a single headline figure — confirm against the published budget documents.
Capital is buoyed by proceeds from the 2023 $1.6B Cincinnati Southern Railway sale (held in trust); ~$58M of railway revenue flows to FY27 capital, a potential source for one-time infrastructure refresh.

Initiatives & Priorities

Data-center zoning study (IDC Overlay #89)

In Jan 2026 the City Manager directed a zoning study on data-center impacts; Council established an Interim Development Control overlay, extended through end of 2026. Driven by AI/cloud demand — signals local sensitivity to power and land use that frames any on-prem/edge infrastructure conversation.

Data Center AI Policy

Open data & analytics (CincyInsights / OPDA)

Cincinnati runs a mature open-data portal (Tyler Data & Insights) and an Office of Performance & Data Analytics in the City Manager's office. A data-modernization and analytics motion — storage, compute, and AI-readiness for civic data.

Open Data Analytics

ETS infrastructure & security modernization

ETS's Enterprise Infrastructure & Security division owns the city data center, fiber network, Microsoft 365, and cybersecurity controls. Core refresh territory for ISG (servers/storage), endpoint, and security infrastructure.

Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Government restructuring (FY26)

City Manager Long announced a 2026 reorganization (dissolving DCED, creating an Office of Strategic Growth and a new resident-services department). Org change can reshape system needs and budget owners — track which departments consolidate.

Transformation Org Change

Procurement

Cincinnati buys through its Office of Procurement (central purchasing for ~24 departments). Most public-sector IT buys in Ohio reach award via competitive solicitation or, more commonly for commodity technology, through cooperative and state contract vehicles — confirm the path before pursuing a deal.

Vehicle / gate	What it means for Dell
Cincinnati Office of Procurement	Central purchasing function led by an (Interim) Chief Procurement Officer; runs ITBs and RFPs and posts opportunities via the city portal / DemandStar. The front door for direct city awards.
Ohio State Term Schedules / cooperative contracts	Ohio public entities routinely buy IT off state and cooperative vehicles to avoid running a full RFP. Confirm Dell coverage on the relevant Ohio cooperative/state contracts that Cincinnati can leverage.
National cooperatives (e.g., Sourcewell, NASPO ValuePoint)	Common piggyback paths for municipal technology buys. Verify which co-ops the city's procurement code permits and that Dell/partner offerings are listed.

Spend Signals

GovSpend · as of Sep 21, 2026

City of Cincinnati, Ohio (agencyId 8096) + Cincinnati Police Department (209849) + Greater Cincinnati Water Works/GCWW (249039) · 3-yr · FY2023–2025

Dell vs. competitors (spend, payee)

CDWG reseller

$3.3M

Dell Marketing

$1.1M

Carahsoft Technology reseller

$124K

Entity aggregates the parent City record (agencyId 8096, thin alone at 3,809 PO records for a city this size) with Cincinnati Police Department (209849) and Greater Cincinnati Water Works/GCWW (249039), which carry separate, materially larger GovSpend records; Cincinnati Fire Department (209637, 155 records) was checked and excluded — no material tech-vendor spend.
Fiscal basis: City of Cincinnati's fiscal year is July–June (confirmed via GovSpend's own Organization.FiscalYear field and city budget documents); window is FY2023–2025 (2022-07-01 to 2025-06-30).
dellFootprint and brandFootprint (product-text matching) are omitted: PO line items for these agencies are recorded as generic NIGP-style category codes or ad hoc project labels (e.g. 'Storage Devices, Electronic', '25-0240 Hard drive destroyer') rather than product/brand names, so Dell, Cisco, HPE, and Apple keyword matches all returned zero or negligible results. vendorSpend (payee) is the only reliable signal here and should be read as a floor.
categories is omitted for the same reason — even restricted to known IT vendors, LineItem.Category values are one-off free-text labels, not a coherent IT-commodity taxonomy.
Excluded as false positives or below the $100K bar: Interaction Insight (~$95K, name collision with the Insight Public Sector reseller), Insight Public Sector + Insight Services (combined ~$24K). No IT-tagged contracts were found expiring 2026-07-29–2027-01-31 for these agencies, so expiringContracts is omitted.
Bid and contract panels refreshed 2026-09-21 from GovSpend (agencyId 8096, 209849, 249039): 0 open bids due on or after 2026-09-21 and 0 contracts ending on or after 2026-10-05 (two-week runway), IT-relevant only. No IT-relevant items: the 10 keyword-matched open bids are all non-technology (recycling, sewer, lighting, clinic supplies) and no IT-tagged contracts end in the window; Police 209849 and GCWW 249039 returned nothing.

Power Structure

Decision-maker	Why they matter
Aftab Pureval Mayor	Directly elected; re-elected Nov 2025 by a wide margin. Sets policy direction and budget priorities with Council — the political sponsor for major initiatives.
Sheryl Long City Manager	18th City Manager; runs operations and ~6,000 employees, including ETS. The executive owner of citywide technology decisions and the FY26 reorg.
Sean Ware IT Director, Enterprise Technology Solutions (ETS)	Leads ETS since Aug 2022 (30+ yrs IT); owns citywide IT strategy, infrastructure, applications, and IT governance. The primary technology relationship.
Enterprise Infrastructure & Security (ETS) Network, data center & cybersecurity division	Owns data-center ops, fiber, M365, and security controls; no separately named CISO surfaced publicly — security sits within this division. Key buying center for ISG and security.
Office of Procurement Central purchasing (Interim CPO: Laura Castillo)	Runs solicitations and contract awards for ~24 departments — the contracting path for any city deal.

News & Signals

Sep 2026

Public-SafetyGovernance

Council takes up motion to tighten oversight of city surveillance tech (cameras, drones, Axon LPRs)

Returning from summer recess, Cincinnati City Council's Budget, Finance and Governance Committee took up Councilmember Anna Albi's motion directing the administration to report within 30 days on surveillance-tech data retention, deployment locations and data-sharing agreements, and to draft an ordinance requiring council approval for related contracts going forward. Cincinnati runs an Axon-based license-plate-reader system (not Flock). For a Dell SLG seller, a new council-approval gate plus formal data-retention and annual impact-reporting requirements shape how video/evidence storage, retention infrastructure, and surveillance-related procurement will move — signaling demand for compliant data-retention/storage solutions and likely longer contract cycles.

Jun 2026

BudgetPublic Safety

Council adopts FY2027 budget update (June 18), ~$593M General Fund; ~$99.4M capital from railway proceeds; +$1.6M for police drone-first-responder expansion

Vacancy savings and ~$20M in cuts closed the ~$29.5M gap, tightening net-new discretionary IT asks; capital is buoyed by railway proceeds (trust now ~$1.9B). The drone-first-responder line signals appetite for public-safety tech — a hook for edge compute, storage, and data-management conversations. Lead with cooperative-vehicle and refresh plays.

Jun 2026

Org Change

Government reorganization goes operational — Office of Strategic Growth and Department of Opportunity & Resident Services (DOORS) now stood up

The DCED dissolution announced in March is now live; new departments mean new system owners and budget lines — re-map stakeholders before forecasting multi-department deals.

Apr 2026

Data CenterPolicy

City Council extends data-center zoning restrictions (IDC Overlay #89) through end of 2026

Local sensitivity to data-center power/land use; frame infrastructure conversations around efficiency and existing-footprint modernization. Zoning study will produce a data-center definition and possible permanent code amendments — watch for the outcome.

Jan 2026

AIPolicy

City Manager directs data-center impact zoning study

AI/cloud-driven demand prompts policy review — signals where the city's attention sits on compute and power infrastructure.

Nov 2025

Leadership

Mayor Aftab Pureval re-elected

Continuity at the top of city government — stable policy and budget direction for multi-year engagements.