Overview
Fort Worth is among the largest and fastest-growing cities in the country — consistently ranked the 11th- or 12th-most-populous US city and now approaching a population of roughly 1 million. The city government runs on a council-manager structure: an elected mayor and council set policy, and a professional City Manager (Jay Chapa, sworn in early 2025) runs day-to-day operations across departments.
Technology is centralized in the IT Solutions Department (ITS), which delivers infrastructure, applications, networking, public-safety systems, and cybersecurity for city operations. Fort Worth adopted a ~$3.09B all-funds budget for FY2026 (a ~10.8% increase), of which the General Fund is ~$1.11B — the pool that funds most public-facing services.
As of mid-2026 the city is forecasting a ~$49M General Fund shortfall for FY2027, which will tighten discretionary technology spend even as growth, AI adoption, and the regional data-center boom raise demand. Fort Worth buys most IT through Texas cooperative contracts rather than running every purchase as a standalone RFP.
- IT buying center: the IT Solutions Department (ITS) under CTO Kevin Gunn — central owner of infrastructure, endpoint, cloud, public-safety systems, and cybersecurity buys.
- Funding shapers: City Manager Jay Chapa sets budget posture; the projected ~$49M FY2027 General Fund shortfall means new IT asks compete on cost-efficiency and lifecycle value.
- Approval gate: Finance's Purchasing Division runs solicitations and supplier onboarding; larger awards go to City Council via the Mayor & Council Communication (M&C) agenda.
- Fastest vehicles: Texas DIR Cooperative Contracts (the city actively renews DIR-CPO agreements for IT goods and staff augmentation), plus BuyBoard/Equalis co-ops; register via the city's PeopleSoft supplier portal.
Where Dell Can Play
- Confirm Dell's Texas DIR Cooperative Contract — plus BuyBoard/Equalis coverage — is active and scoped for the city, and register/verify status in Fort Worth's supplier portal.
- Engage IT Solutions (CTO Kevin Gunn's organization) as the central buying center for infrastructure, client/endpoint, cloud, and cybersecurity.
- Lead with cost-efficiency and lifecycle value given the projected FY2027 shortfall — frame refresh and consolidation as ways to do more within a tighter envelope.
- Tie an AI-infrastructure and endpoint story to the city's expanding AI/GenAI program and the 18-of-27-department adoption already underway.
- Track the summer-2026 FY2027 budget cycle (values certified late July, fall adoption) to time proposals to the city's funding decisions.
Budget & Fiscal
Fort Worth adopted a ~$3.09B all-funds budget for FY2026, up ~10.8% year over year, while cutting the property-tax rate to $0.6700 per $100. The General Fund — the source of most operating and technology dollars — is ~$1.11B. Heading into FY2027 the city is projecting a ~$49M General Fund shortfall, so expect closer scrutiny of new and recurring IT spend.
- The FY2027 budget is built over summer 2026 (property values certified late July) with council adoption in the fall — a window where new IT asks get prioritized or deferred.
- Tech spend is spread across the General Fund (ITS operations), enterprise/utility funds (water, aviation), and capital — confirm the fund and department behind any given buy before forecasting.
Initiatives & Priorities
Fort Worth adopted its first Generative AI policy in 2023 and expanded it in 2025 into a comprehensive AI/GenAI policy with a governance charter, board, and review committee. Reported use spans 18 of 27 departments — 911 call triage/translation, pavement and storm-drain assessment, HR, and legal research. AI-ready compute, data, and endpoint refresh are downstream needs.
AI ModernizationITS owns security operations for a large municipality and its public-safety systems. Local government remains a top ransomware target nationally, keeping endpoint, identity, backup/recovery, and resilient infrastructure on the agenda — a steady refresh-and-harden motion.
Cybersecurity ResilienceSustained population growth drives demand for data-center, server, storage, network, and hybrid-cloud capacity to keep city services online. Tie infrastructure refresh to service-continuity and the cost pressures of the FY2027 budget gap.
Data Center CloudDallas–Fort Worth is one of the largest US data-center and AI-infrastructure markets, with multibillion-dollar campuses (CyrusOne, Wistron AI plants, Siemens) and inventory projected to more than double. This shapes the workforce, power, and tech ecosystem around the city even though the campuses are private builds, not city procurement.
AI EcosystemProcurement
Fort Worth centralizes buying through its Purchasing Division (Finance) and leans heavily on Texas cooperative contracts, which satisfy competitive-bid requirements without a standalone RFP. For a Dell seller the first move is confirming coverage on the co-ops the city actually uses and registering in the city's supplier portal.
| Vehicle / gate | What it means for Dell |
|---|---|
| Texas DIR Cooperative Contracts | Statewide pre-competed IT vehicle available to Texas local governments — a primary path for hardware, software, and services. Confirm Dell's DIR contract is active and correctly scoped for the city. |
| BuyBoard / Equalis & other co-ops | Fort Worth uses BuyBoard and Equalis (and similar regional/national co-ops) for many purchases. Match the offer to the co-op the city is buying through for a given category. |
| City Purchasing & supplier registration | Direct solicitations and contracts run through the Finance Purchasing Division; vendors register via the city's PeopleSoft supplier portal. Larger awards go to City Council on the Mayor & Council Communication (M&C) agenda. |
Spend Signals
GovSpend · as of Sep 21, 2026Dell vs. competitors (spend, payee)
Brand footprint — all channels (est.)
Higher of two conservative lenses: product-name match · manufacturer tag. Both undercount — treat as floors.
Top IT categories
Expiring contracts (re-compete)
Open bids / RFPs
| Solicitation | Due |
|---|---|
| AI-based Interactive Voice Response Solution (Request for Proposal) City of Fort Worth | Oct 22, 2026 |
- vendorSpend is a payee lens (POs paid to each vendor); brandFootprint/dellFootprint is a product-name text-match lens across all vendors — the two views measure different things and will not reconcile.
- Product-name text matching captures all channels including resellers, but misses line items that never name the product — treat figures as conservative floors.
- Vendor-name filter false positives were excluded from vendorSpend: 'Stripe A Zone' (~$21.7M, pavement marking) and 'Insight Global' (~$9.3M, general staffing) are not IT resellers.
- Contract dollar values are often unpublished on renewal records — the expiring-contracts list is a timing signal, not a spend figure.
- Dell footprint figures on this page were recomputed on 2026-08-05 after a measurement error was found: the earlier method summed per-keyword buckets, so a line item naming two matched terms (e.g. “Dell OptiPlex”) was counted twice. The values here come from a single de-duplicated match over the same keyword set and supersede the earlier, overstated totals.
- Competitor brand figures on this page were recomputed on 2026-08-05 after the same measurement error found in the Dell totals: the earlier method summed per-keyword buckets, so a line item naming two matched terms (e.g. “Cisco Catalyst”) was counted twice. Values here come from a single de-duplicated match over the same keyword set and supersede the earlier, overstated totals.
- Bid and contract panels refreshed 2026-09-21 from GovSpend (agencyId 3831): 1 open bid due on or after 2026-09-21 and 7 contracts ending on or after 2026-10-05 (two-week runway), IT-relevant only. Agency ID resolved by lookup; contracts chosen via the IT-reseller vendor filter because keyword results were dominated by lab and facilities agreements.
Power Structure
| Decision-maker | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| Jay Chapa City Manager | Runs city operations; sworn in early 2025 after a 25-year city career. Sets the priorities and budget posture that IT spend follows. |
| Mattie Parker Mayor | Elected leader who, with the City Council, sets policy and approves the budget and major contracts (M&C agenda). |
| Kevin Gunn Chief Technology Officer (IT Solutions) | Senior technology leader over the IT Solutions Department — the central buying center for city IT, infrastructure, and security. Confirm current title/scope before engaging. |
| IT Solutions Department (ITS) Central IT, infrastructure & cybersecurity | Owns city technology delivery and the security function; the day-to-day relationship for infrastructure, cloud, endpoint, and cyber. |
| Finance — Purchasing Division Citywide procurement | Owns solicitations, cooperative-contract use, and supplier onboarding — the gate to any city purchase. |
News & Signals
Sources
- City of Fort Worth — IT Solutions (ITS)
- City of Fort Worth — FY2026 Budget
- Hoodline — Fort Worth Council approves $3.09B FY2026 budget
- Community Impact — Fort Worth faces $49M FY2026-27 shortfall
- Community Impact — Fort Worth proposes budget cuts plan amid $49M shortfall (May 2026)
- Fort Worth Inc. — City moves to tighten data-center rules (June 2026)
- Fort Worth Report — Ethics experts: mayor should abstain from data-center votes (June 2026)
- Kevin Gunn — CTO, City of Fort Worth (LinkedIn)
- Fort Worth Inc. — How Fort Worth is using AI in city government
- City of Fort Worth — City Manager Jay Chapa
- City of Fort Worth — Purchasing
- Texas DIR — Cooperative Contracts
- KERA News — Data center moratorium takes first steps after Fort Worth City Council's unanimous vote
- KERA News — Fort Worth OKs $10B data center site plan with more green space, distance from homes
- City of Fort Worth — FY2027 Recommended Budget Book
- Fort Worth Business Press — Council approves FY2027 budget and tax rate