Soaked: Harris County Short on Flood Control Funding

With another spring and summer just around the corner, Harris County may not be prepared for flood season despite being the most flood prone county in the country. Six years after voters approved a $2.5 billion bond issue for flood control, the county is now short on cash with several of those projects unfinished, or still not started. The county engineering department reports a shortfall of about $140 million on several drainage projects for this year alone.

At last week's Commissioners Court, Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey (R) called this a "major crisis," and lamented a lack of urgency from the flood control district and the engineer's office. Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones (D) said she was "shocked and dismayed" and added "we need a sense of urgency."

The engineering department partially blamed the shortfall on a rise in construction costs since the pandemic, but the county's spending practices are also coming into question. The county underwent an expensive reorganization in 2021 that included adding new positions like a county administrator with the goal of improving efficiency. Democrats on Commissioners Court have also been trying to spend unused federal pandemic funds on a guaranteed basic income program for poor residents (currently on hold in the courts.)

Reporter Holly Hansen, who is covering this issue for the Texan, says this is a bad look for county leadership. "The county is spending, for example, 36 million dollars for murals," she tells KTRH. "That seems like a bit of a slap in the face when everyone is very concerned about the next time we have one of these major storm events."

County Judge Lina Hidalgo's suggested solution is to go back to voters to seek another bond issue. Hansen believes that would be a tough sell, especially since the county just raised property taxes last year, and voters in November approved another hike in the flood control district taxes. "It's going to be pretty painful to have to come back to taxpayers and ask for more flood control money, after this huge tax increase and some questions about the way the 2018 bonds have been spent thus far," she says.