Overview
Miami-Dade County is the largest county in Florida and one of the largest local governments in the United States, serving roughly 2.7 million residents across Miami and 30+ municipalities. It operates under a strong-mayor / county-commission structure: Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is the elected chief executive who proposes the budget and runs day-to-day operations, with a 13-member Board of County Commissioners as the legislative body.
Central technology is delivered by the Information Technology Department (ITD), which supports all 26 county departments with a staff of around 900 covering enterprise applications, network and radio systems, the data center, and cybersecurity. The county has positioned itself as a public-sector AI leader — its AI Roadmap and policy framework have drawn national recognition — and runs sizable enterprise programs (ERP / finance and supply chain, criminal-justice systems) that touch infrastructure, cloud, and security spend.
For a Dell SLG seller, Miami-Dade is a marquee county account: a large, modernization-minded buyer where the budget is approved annually by the Commission and most large IT purchases route through the county's central procurement organization.
- CITD (Communications, Information and Technology Department), led by Director Jorge Olazabal, is the central IT buying center for all 26 county departments
- Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's office and the CAO set the modernization agenda and budget priorities that fund CITD initiatives
- 13-member Board of County Commissioners adopts the annual budget and must approve large contract awards — the gate for deals of size
- Strategic Procurement (formerly Internal Services Dept.) runs solicitations; Florida State Term Contracts, MyFloridaMarketPlace, and NASPO ValuePoint / Sourcewell / OMNIA cooperatives are the fastest compliant paths around a full county RFP
Where Dell Can Play
- Map Dell's position on Miami-Dade county contracts and confirm Florida state / national co-op coverage (NASPO ValuePoint, Sourcewell, OMNIA) as the access paths to large buys.
- Lead with AI-ready infrastructure (compute, storage, data platforms) tied to the county's published AI Roadmap and its public-benefits and HR AI use cases.
- Build the security motion with the CISO around endpoint, data protection, and cyber-resilience for a 26-department enterprise.
- Position infrastructure refresh and hybrid-cloud / as-a-service for the data center and ERP modernization, framed around efficiency given the constrained budget.
- Re-anchor the account on the reorganized CITD and its new permanent director, Jorge Olazabal — develop the Mayor's office / CAO as executive sponsors alongside CITD and the central procurement organization.
- Lead the modernization narrative on the county's publicly stated legacy lock-in: position migration, hybrid-cloud, and open-standards infrastructure as the path off a ~30-year estate that can't be lift-and-shifted.
Budget & Fiscal
The Board of County Commissioners adopted a $12.9B FY2025-26 budget in the early hours of Sept. 19, 2025, after closing a roughly $402M shortfall while holding the millage rate flat (total adopted operating and debt millage of 9.5778, no property-tax-rate increase). IT is funded within departmental and capital lines rather than a single published figure; ITD's scale is best read through its ~900-person workforce and the enterprise systems it operates.
- There is no single public 'IT budget' line; technology spend is distributed across departmental operating budgets, the multi-year capital plan, and ITD's internal-service charges.
- FY25-26 was a constrained cycle (large shortfall, flat tax rate) — expect scrutiny on new spend and a preference for efficiency, consolidation, and contract-vehicle pricing.
- Budgets are proposed by the Mayor and adopted annually by the Commission, typically finalized in September.
Initiatives & Priorities
Miami-Dade has published an AI Roadmap and AI policy (approved-tools requirement, mandatory human review) and has been recognized as a leading U.S. county for structured AI adoption. Priority use cases include an AI assistant for public-benefits applications and an HR/benefits chatbot — pull-through for AI infrastructure, data platforms, and security.
AI DataITD operates an enterprise resource planning system for finance and supply-chain operations plus large criminal-justice systems spanning many agencies. These platforms anchor ongoing compute, storage, and data-center refresh needs.
Modernization Data CenterThe county runs a CITD-led (formerly ITD), CISO-owned cybersecurity program protecting county systems and resident data across all departments. A perennial buying center for endpoint, data protection, resilience, and recovery — and a competitive cybersecurity-services solicitation is in the procurement pipeline as of 2026.
CybersecurityCITD manages the county data center, network, and radio systems and is steadily modernizing a ~30-year legacy estate toward hybrid cloud and shared services. Leadership has publicly acknowledged legacy lock-in that can't be 'lift-and-shifted' — a strong fit for infrastructure, migration, as-a-service, and managed-services offerings.
Cloud InfrastructureProcurement
Large Miami-Dade IT buys route through the county's central procurement organization (historically the Internal Services Department; now branded Strategic Procurement), which awards and manages county contracts and cooperative agreements. Solicitations are posted on the county site and via BidSync, and the county also offers cooperative contracts other Florida municipalities and agencies can ride. Confirm Dell's standing on the relevant county contracts and the state/co-op vehicles before forecasting.
| Vehicle / gate | What it means for Dell |
|---|---|
| Miami-Dade central procurement (ISD / Strategic Procurement) | Central agency for acquiring goods and services; awards county contracts and runs the vendor-registration portal. Contact: ISD-VSS@miamidade.gov / (305) 375-5773. |
| Miami-Dade cooperative contracts | County-negotiated contracts that other municipalities and agencies can use, and a list of eligible (piggyback) contracts the county itself can buy from. |
| Florida state & national cooperatives | Counties commonly leverage State of Florida contracts and national co-ops (e.g., NASPO ValuePoint, Sourcewell, OMNIA) — confirm Dell coverage as alternative paths to a competed RFP. |
Power Structure
| Decision-maker | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| Daniella Levine Cava Mayor (elected chief executive) | Strong mayor who proposes the budget and runs operations; sets the AI-forward and modernization agenda. The top executive sponsor for major county technology direction. |
| Jorge Olazabal Director, Communications, Information and Technology Department (CITD) | Named permanent director in late 2025 (memo dated Dec. 10, 2025) after serving as CITD/ITD assistant director over infrastructure and platforms; now leads the reorganized central technology + communications department. The primary executive owner of county IT modernization and the top new relationship to build. (County's legacy ITD bio page still lagged showing an interim director as of mid-2026; treat CITD/Olazabal as current.) |
| Carladenise Edwards Chief Administrative Officer (former Interim Director, ITD/CITD) | CAO who held interim leadership of central IT in 2025 before Olazabal's permanent appointment; remains a senior executive relationship in the administration. |
| Lars Schmekel Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) | Owns county-wide security policy and the cybersecurity program — the entry point for security, data-protection, and resilience conversations. Appears current as of mid-2026; a county cybersecurity-services solicitation is in the procurement pipeline. |
| Board of County Commissioners 13-member legislative body | Adopts the annual budget and approves large contracts; district commissioners influence priorities and procurement awards. |
News & Signals
Sources
- Miami Today — Miami-Dade County OK's borrowing $2.5 billion for projects (July 28, 2026)
- Miami-Dade County — Communications, Information and Technology Department Director (Jorge Olazabal, bio)
- Miami-Dade County — Communications, Information and Technology Department (CITD) home
- Miami Today — Is Miami-Dade trapped by big-tech legacy systems? (May 13, 2026; Olazabal on legacy modernization)
- Miami-Dade County — Future competitive posting: Cybersecurity Services Solution
- Miami-Dade County — Information Technology Department Director (legacy bio page)
- Miami-Dade County — Artificial Intelligence Roadmap
- CBS Miami — Miami-Dade commissioners approve $12.9 billion budget
- GovTech — Interim Director On Board at Miami-Dade County IT Department
- Miami-Dade County — Strategic Procurement
- Refresh Miami — Q&A with Miami-Dade County's CIO (ITD scale, programs)