Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Larry E. Reid Jr.
Following a revelation that Harris County has about a $1 billion funding shortfall for earmarked flood bond projects initiated after Hurricane Harvey, county commissioners on Thursday voted to finance certain high-priority projects.
The approval secures certain flood mitigation projects approved by voters in 2018, including ones that rely on funding partnerships. The projects were at risk of being cut as the county faces a shortfall on its record $2.5 billion flood bond program, commissioners said earlier this month.
The vote on the flood mitigation initiatives comes after catastrophic flooding in Central Texas over the Fourth of July weekend. More than 120 people have been confirmed dead in the floods, including several from the Houston area, and at least 100 more were still considered missing as of Friday.
In a matter of days in August 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated the Texas coast after the major tropical system made landfall in Rockport, slid north and hovered over Southeast Texas for four days, dumping rain that flooded much of the Houston region. The next year, voters in Harris County OK’d major repairs to flood-damaged drainage infrastructure, channel modifications to improve storm water conveyance, voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties and a major overhaul of the county’s flood warning system.
But representatives of the Harris County Flood Control District revealed that 34 of those projects, including ones in the most flood-prone areas of the county, will need more money. In total, the county is about $1.2 billion short on essential dollars to wrap up those projects. Voters approved 181 line items within the bond and nearly 140 of them are still in progress. Construction on many of those projects have not started.
Tina Peterson, the executive director of the flood control district, said there have been challenges with the bond program since the beginning — which was already created to have a funding gap.
“That challenge was acknowledged early on and we’ve had to work very hard to overcome that gap, but we have,” Peterson said.
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The flood control district said it had secured $2.7 billion in partnerships and has already spent more than $1 billion — the majority of which went toward construction costs associated with flood projects. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, who has repeatedly raised questions about how the project funds are being dispersed to each precinct, presented motions to fund all projects with grant commitments — primarily from the Texas General Land Office. He said the county needs to send clear messages to funding partners about the status of the projects.
He has openly criticized the commissioners court’s recent decision at a meeting earlier this month to approve projects within an equity framework. He said the formula is not on a “worst-first” basis and fails to prioritize what voters approved in 2018. Commissioners have argued the framework discounts projects in some areas that should be considered essential.
On Thursday, commissioners unanimously voted to secure funding for some of those projects, including $20 million for the Lake Houston Dam.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said if they ever need to go back to the voters to request additional funds to bridge the gap, county officials will need to gain their trust. During the court’s meeting earlier this month, the agenda item about creating the equity framework drew pushback from residents living in flood-prone areas and raised questions about the data surrounding the funding shortfall.
“We need to make sure people have confidence,” Ellis said. “I would say we ought to discourage our allies on other levels from jumping in it, because they’re never going to put in enough money — our friends at the state.”
Ramsey said he directed his team to work on its own calculations and criticized what he called complicated information coming from the flood control district.
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