Florida Dept of Corrections (FDC)

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) is the largest state agency by personnel and operates the third-largest state prison system in the United States, behind only Texas and the federal Bureau of Prisons. The department incarcerates roughly 80,000–90,000+ inmates across 140+ facilities — major institutions, annexes, work camps, work-release centers, and forestry/road camps — and supervises well over 100,000 offenders in the community through probation and parole.

FDC employs about 24,000 people, the majority of them certified correctional and probation officers. For a technology seller, FDC reads as a high-volume infrastructure and security-modernization account rather than a procurement conduit: it runs its own data systems, facility-security technology, networking, and offender-management platforms, and is in the middle of a multi-year modernization of legacy systems.

Leadership has just turned over: long-serving Secretary Ricky Dixon retired effective June 30, 2026, and Governor DeSantis elevated Deputy Secretary Richard Comerford — a 40-year FDC veteran — to Secretary, so the relationship map at the top of the agency is being rebuilt heading into FY2026-27.

FDC is a large direct spender. Its FY2026-27 request carried significant technology and facility-security line items on top of a major correctional-officer pay package, and the Governor's recommendations earmarked tens of millions specifically for IT modernization. Governor DeSantis signed the ~$117.6B FY2026-27 state budget on June 29, 2026 (~$810M in line-item vetoes). Notably he vetoed HB 5403E — a bipartisan prison-upgrade plan ($50M/yr for 40 years, a 600-bed prison hospital, and bond authority for new construction) — and, tied to it, the $2/hr correctional-officer pay raise, calling the linkage a way to 'hold hostage' pay to generate debt. Re-verify which FDC IT-modernization and security-equipment line items survived the vetoes before forecasting.

• Governor's FY2026 recommendations included ~$17M for the offender-based IT (OBIS) modernization project and ~$14M for an IT resolution plan focused on applications.
• Additional FY2026-27 asks included $3.5M to expand intelligence/contraband-detection capabilities and $3.3M to replace radios, radio towers, and associated systems.
• Budget figures here are requests and Governor's recommendations — the enacted FY2026-27 appropriation governs actual spend; re-verify after signing/vetoes.

FDC buys through Florida's centralized purchasing framework plus its own agency solicitations. The Department of Management Services (DMS) is the only entity authorized to establish State Term Contracts, and all vendors register and transact through MyFloridaMarketPlace (MFMP). Confirm Dell's State Term Contract / IT enterprise-agreement coverage first, then track FDC's direct RFPs (e.g., the offender-based information system modernization solicitations).