Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech)

Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech) is the state's consolidated central IT services agency, headquartered in Olympia. It operates Washington's shared technology backbone — central data centers, the state network, cloud platforms, and enterprise applications — and serves state agencies plus county, city, and tribal governments and public-benefit nonprofits.

WaTech sets statewide IT strategy and enterprise architecture, and it houses both the Office of the State CIO and the Office of Cybersecurity (OCS), Washington's central security organization. A 2024 reorganization (SHB 1947) folded the former standalone Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) into WaTech, concentrating policy, oversight, and shared-services delivery under one roof.

WaTech is best understood as a proprietary (central-service) agency: rather than a large general-fund appropriation, most of its revenue comes from billing the agencies it serves through allocated rates, fee-for-service, and agreements. That makes it the enterprise relationship for selling into Washington state government, though much agency-specific buying and the largest IT budgets still sit with the line agencies themselves.

WaTech is a proprietary agency funded mainly through cost recovery — allocated rates, fee-for-service, and agreements billed to the agencies it serves — rather than a single large general-revenue line. Its operating authority sits largely in the WA Technology Solutions Revolving Account, so its budget reflects services delivered statewide more than its own discretionary spend. Confirm enacted figures against OFM and the legislative fiscal records before forecasting.

• Because WaTech is proprietary, its spend largely passes through from the agencies it bills — the largest agency IT budgets sit with the line agencies, not WaTech.
• The proposed 2025-27 figure reflected a modest reduction from the prior biennium; budget pressure is a stated constraint on modernization pace, which WaTech is positioning AI to help offset.
• Project-level IT funding for large agency initiatives flows through OFM decision packages and WaTech's IT project oversight gates — track those for net-new opportunity.

Selling into Washington state runs on pre-competed vehicles, not one-off RFPs. Statewide IT contracts and cooperative agreements are administered by the Department of Enterprise Services (DES), including NASPO ValuePoint cooperative contracts; WaTech is the enterprise IT customer and the policy/oversight authority. Confirm Dell's coverage on the relevant DES master and NASPO ValuePoint agreements first — it's the access path to far more than WaTech alone.