Maintenance Per stream mile

Another Way to Look at Prop A: Maintenance Dollars Per Stream Mile

10/28/24 – After posting about maintenance dollars per square mile in Harris County’s different watersheds, an astute reader suggested I look at maintenance dollars per stream mile.

Why? Stream miles don’t always vary proportionally with square miles and may be a more appropriate metric for maintenance. Certainly, when considering activities, such as channel mowing and clean outs, that makes sense. Especially when you consider “open stream miles,” as distinct from natural channels.

So I ran the numbers. Rankings varied slightly, but overall, maintenance money still goes disproportionately to watersheds with a high percentage of low-to-moderate (LMI) residents. Maybe more so.

Different Metric, Similar Results

Last week, at the start of early voting, I posted about the proposed 63% tax increase called Proposition A. Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) is pitching it as a tax increase dedicated to maintenance, even though the ballot language does not limit it to maintenance.

In last week’s post, I examined maintenance dollars spent per square mile in each watershed. To see what would happen with maintenance dollars per stream mile, I transferred stream miles from the HCFCD website into my spreadsheet and recomputed everything.

While some watersheds rose and others fell in the rankings, watersheds with a majority LMI-population still floated to the top. Even moreso.

Coincidentally, those with the highest concentrations of spending also tend to have Democratic precinct commissioners. And the eight lowest ranking watersheds (with one exception) all fall into the lone Republican-led precinct on Commissioners Court.

Here’s the new table. Gold colored watersheds have a majority of LMI residents.

HCFCD maintenance spending per stream mile since from Hurricane Harvey through 3Q24. Does not include County-wide spending. $89,471 is average in last column.

Will You See Any Benefit from Proposition A?

Why is this important? HCFCD’s proposed tax increase, Proposition A, would raise your flood control taxes by 63%.

But curiously, the revenue-increase request comes at a time when overall spending is declining and approximately 60% of the dollars remain in the flood bond.

Also, HCFCD is trying to increase the percentage of HUD dollars going to LMI-watersheds to 70%, even though HUD only requires 50%.

When looking at maintenanc data, it seems we may already have an Equity Prioritization Index for maintenance dollars – in practice if not in policy.

If you vote for the “maintenance-tax” increase, understand that you may not see as much benefit from it as other parts of the county…if you see any benefit at all. Nothing in the wording of the ballot item guarantees a fair share to each watershed. For instance…

The difference between Halls and Luce Bayous’ maintenance spending per stream mile since Harvey is 28:1!

Data obtained from HCFCD via FOIA request shown in table above.

Compare Watershed Map, Precinct Map and Spending

Most people don’t know the location of all of the watersheds in Harris County. Nor are they familiar with precinct boundaries. So I will reprint both maps below. Compare them, then look up the maintenance dollars for your watershed in the table above.

watershed map of Harris County
Harris County Watershed map
Many watersheds cut across precinct boundaries. But P3 is the only precinct with a Republican commissioner.

Past is Prologue

As Shakespeare said in The Tempest, “What’s past is prologue.” Before you vote on Prop A, understand where your money has gone until now. Maintenance dollars often follow capital improvement dollars. And capital improvement spending has also leaned heavily toward LMI areas, since Harvey. So the trend is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Is Harris County Misusing LMI?

All other things being equal, I believe that LMI should be used as a tie-breaker when allocating funds. But all other things are not equal. Some of the watersheds that receive the fewest maintenance dollars have the worst flooding.

worst first
Chart showing feet above flood stage of 33 gages of misc. bayous in Harris County during Harvey.

Politics has trumped public safety in Harris County for some time now. I urge you to use your vote to send a message to Commissioners Court if you want to see your fair share of HCFCD spending.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/28/24

2617 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 9 More days until Election Day