Department Of State Health Services

Department Of State Health Services, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a U.S. state government entity that acts as a prime recipient and prime contractor for federal public health, vital records, food safety inspection, and disease surveillance services. The agency operates across 1,082 total federal awards spanning contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements—97% in a prime role—without set-aside designations, competing directly in full-and-open federal procurements across health, agriculture, and environmental agencies.

DSHS's federal customer base reflects its role as the principal public health authority for Texas. The top five funding agencies by award count are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (103 awards), the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (70 awards), CDC Pittsburgh (52 awards, $71.3 million combined potential value), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (49 awards), and the Environmental Protection Agency (44 awards). The same agencies dominate by potential value: CDC Pittsburgh leads with $71.3 million across 52 awards, followed by the Social Security Administration with $54.4 million across 36 awards, the Food and Drug Administration with $26.2 million across 42 awards, and CDC's Office of Acquisition Services with $21.7 million across 16 awards. DSHS competes across multiple parent vehicles, including an indefinite delivery contract with CDC Pittsburgh (HHSD200200100092I, 10 task orders, $9.7 million) and two basic ordering agreements and several indefinite delivery contracts with the Social Security Administration, placing task orders valued between $1.8 million and $6.2 million per vehicle.

DSHS's contract and grant portfolio spans public health surveillance, vaccine safety monitoring, vital records and death records management, food safety inspection, emergency preparedness, and environmental health compliance. Representative contract work includes a $9.9 million definitive contract with the Social Security Administration for electronic death records management through December 2028, a $13.5 million contract for enumeration-at-birth and race-ethnicity records management (extending through June 2029), a $2.75 million FDA contract for human food inspection services in Texas (through March 2027), and a $1.06 million CDC delivery order for the 2026 Vaccine Safety Datalink Project (completing May 2027). The agency holds a $7.3 million indefinite delivery contract with CDC for the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project 2022-2027, from which multiple task orders have been placed for immunization program improvement and post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring. In the grant space, DSHS is recipient on cooperative agreements and project grants including a $58.66 million Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (CFDA 93.994, through September 2027), an $18.3 million meat and poultry inspection cooperative agreement with USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (CFDA 10.475, through September 2026), a $1.47 million five-year HIV prevention and surveillance cooperative agreement with CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS (CFDA 93.940, through September 2030), and multiple EPA formula grants for air quality, lead-based paint abatement, and asbestos compliance totaling roughly $2 million annually.

Recent activity shows consistent federal engagement with 24 awards in 2022, 33 in 2023, 32 in 2024, and 27 in 2025, but with a recompete cliff of 44 awards (combined potential value $12.9 million) completing within the next twenty-four months. SCI-reported invoicing on federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $5.2 million across FY2022–FY2024, with FY2024 showing $1.6 million across 22.9 FTEs—an upward FTE trajectory. Government-paid rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts ranged from a 10th percentile of $36.11 per hour to a median of $61.73 per hour and a 90th percentile of $394.83 per hour, reflecting mixed workforce composition from field inspectors to specialized technical and management roles. DSHS reported zero sub-hours on average across prime service contracts and three named subcontractors total, indicating the agency delivers most services through its own workforce rather than subcontracting. The agency operates with no subcontractor teaming on contracts—it functions as a direct service provider to federal agencies rather than as a feeder to larger primes.

DSHS acts as a sub-recipient on a smaller set of federal grant awards routed through the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Association of Public Health Laboratories, including COVID-19 response funding, emergency protective measures, and respiratory virus surveillance sequencing work. Functionally, DSHS serves as a state-level operational extension of federal public health and food safety missions, with capability concentrations in Administration of Public Health Programs (223 awards), Computing Infrastructure and Data Processing (48 awards), Testing Laboratories and Services (35 awards), and Reference Laboratory Testing (29 awards). The agency's federal footprint reflects its statutory role in public health protection and vital records administration across Texas, with awards spanning disease surveillance, environmental health enforcement, maternal and child health services, emergency preparedness, and biosecurity support.