With 25% Funding Shortfall, 80% of Flood-Bond Projects Cut

6/29/25 – Analysis of documents released after the Harris County Commissioner’s Court meeting on 6/26/25, shows that because of a claimed 25% funding shortfall the county will cut 80% of the projects in the bond.

Before the meeting, the county had released only one blank page about what turned out to be the disappearance of more than a billion dollars.

Even worse, to make up for the claimed shortfall, Democratic Commissioners voted 4:1 along party lines to defund more than 80% of projects voters approved in the 2018 Flood Bond.

Something’s not adding up that demands an explanation.

Huh? 80% of Projects Cut after Losing 25% of Funding?

The $2.5 billion Bond was sold with a project list that totaled roughly $5.1 billion. However, partner funding more than made up the difference. Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) has commitments for another $2.7 billion – bringing the total available to $5.2 billion. A $1.3 billion shortfall is 25% of that total.

Questions:

• Why the shortfall?
• Why the disproportionate cuts?
• Why are we only learning now – seven years into the bond?
• Are the proposed cuts fair?

Reasons Proposed for Shortfall

In her presentation Dr. Tina Petersen, executive director of HCFCD, attempted to explain the shortfall by alluding to:

• Cost increases (i.e., due to inflation)
• Grant requirements
• Changing regulations
• Right-of-way acquisitions
• Program structure

Others have alluded to:

• Scope creep
• Cumbersome processes related to Ellis equity formula
• Slow execution
• Political interference
• Need for more money in the original bond
• Changes in leadership at HCFCD
• Personnel turnover at lower levels
• Unnecessary bureaucracy that adds cost without adding value
• Covid
• Low initial estimates
• Addition of projects
• IT system issues

Why Such Draconian Cuts?

Why are the cuts so disproportionate to the shortfall?

High on the list of possible explanations would be the motion that Democratic members of Commissioners Court approved.

It called to focus only on projects in the top quartile of Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Index.

But it also called to fully fund future costs associated with those projects. That builds scope creep into the bond.

If, for instance, the Flood Bond only included a preliminary engineering review for a project, it will now include full engineering, design, right-of-way acquisition, construction, landscaping, turnover costs and bagels.

In other words…

Projects that voters approved are being cut to pay for projects they didn’t approve.

It’s a fundamental breach of public trust.

Why Are We Only Learning Now?

Since Harris County Democratic Commissioners brought in new management, HCFCD has largely gone dark.

The District, once a paragon of transparency, efficiency, and speed under the previous leadership, has largely stopped updating its website as performance decreased.

Harris County Flood Control bid only three projects last year.

Active projects used to be updated weekly. Now they’ve disappeared from the website.

Bond-update frequency fell from monthly to quarterly to annually.

When commissioners asked for an update in February, it took HCFCD five months to produce a complicated report that never really did address what commissioners publicly requested.

And the County’s Flood Resilience Task Force is still waiting for flood-risk data it requested in writing years ago.

The lack of information masks serious issues that have built for years.

In last week’s discussion, Judge Lina Hidalgo complained repeatedly and bitterly about her lack of understanding, a lack of transparency and her inability to get simple, straight answers.

But hey, what kind of manager puts up with that? For seven years!

Are Cuts Fair?

The County uses Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Index to rank flood-mitigation projects from 0 to 10 using a multi-factor index.

After a marathon 5-hour discussion, Commissioners voted to continue funding only projects scoring above 7.5. The rest will die.

Ellis’ scoring matrix has nothing to do with flood damage, severity of flooding, flood frequency, or flood risk. It gives 65% weight to factors such as race, household income, social vulnerability, population density, and housing density.

Precinct 3 had the highest flooding in the county during Harvey. Yet the lone, Republican-led precinct lost the most projects and kept the fewest by wide margins. In fact, every other precinct kept at least twice as many projects as Precinct 3.

To compile this table, I counted projects in each quartile, When a project crossed precinct boundaries, I counted it once for each precinct.

The list actually contained 146 discrete projects, not including boundary jumpers.

• 25 in Quartile 1
• 51 in Quartile 2
• 39 in Quartile 3
• 6 in Quartile 4
• 25 not assigned to quartiles

When looked at this way, the county will pursue only 17% of the projects remaining in the bond.

Stunned citizens are struggling to comprehend the scope of the cuts, which will negatively impact roughly 80% of the county.

No wonder the county kept a tight lid on its analysis and didn’t post anything for the public to review before the meeting. Protesters might have showed up to counter two hours of Ellis’ surrogates last Thursday.

We Need to Demand…

• Answers.
• Action.
• Accountability.
• Fairness.

And we need them fast. Frankly, I’m surprised no one has filed a lawsuit yet. This feels like slow-motion voter fraud.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/29/25

2861 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.

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