Remaining Flood-Bond Funds Going Only to Equity Projects

6/27/25 4PM – In a marathon discussion yesterday that stretched for hours, Harris County Commissioners Court struggled with how to plug a $1.3 billion shortfall in 2018 Flood-Bond funding. In the end, they voted 4-1 along party lines to apply all remaining flood-bond money exclusively to projects that ranked in the top quartile on Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Index.

This will effectively defund all projects that fall into the second, third and fourth quartiles on Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Framework.

The Motion

Commissioners voted 4:1 to use all available flood-bond funds:

“To fully fund all current and future needs for projects in Quartile One, according to the 2022 Prioritization Framework, and direct the Harris County Flood Control District to work with court officers and report to Commissioners Court a project schedule by September 18th, 2025, on all future projects with a recommendation.”

Impact of Cuts

Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the dissenting Republican, said, “It was like a bunker-busting bomb exploding yesterday. They blew up the 2018 bond program.” The decision will eliminate funding for 44 of the 48 bond projects that Ramsey had in his precinct.

“There’s no longer any money for them,” said Ramsey.

Ramsey will lose $424 million of flood-bond funding. He added, “Projects in the top quartile eat up every remaining available dollar in the bond. Every bit of it. There’s none left. Not a single dime.”

Want to see whether a project near you was killed? Here is a list of Flood-Bond Projects divided into Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ Equity Quartiles.

Only those marked with a #1 in the Quartile Column will be pursued at this point. The rest are effectively dead unless funding can be found elsewhere.

No Projects Left in Lake Houston Area

All HCFCD flood-bond projects in the Lake Houston Area fell below Ellis’ Equity Quartile #1 into the second, third, or fourth quartiles.

Following the Democratic plan will eliminate $20 million for Lake Houston Floodgates See Project G-103-Gates.

It will also eliminate any help for the Kingwood Diversion Ditch. The Kingwood Area Drainage Analysis called that the most important project in the area. And Kingwood experienced the highest flooding in the county during Harvey.

This doesn’t mean those projects will automatically die. But it is a setback.

It means project leaders will have to seek funding elsewhere for money that HCFCD had already committed years ago and that voters approved.

In that regard, Houston City Council Member Fred Flickinger had this to say about the Commissioner Court’s decision.

“Obviously the County’s handling of the flood bonds has been a concern for several years. Commissioner Ramsey is continuing to fight for our area to complete the necessary flood mitigation projects.

“However, regardless of the outcome at the County level, I have full confidence that the schedule I laid out in last year’s town hall meeting will in fact be held with the support of Representative Cunningham, Senator Creighton and Mayor Whitmire.”

Commissioner Ramsey also described the Gate project as his “Rubicon,” a reference to a Roman battle that represents a point of no return, i.e., a battle that must be won at all costs.

Uncertainty Surrounds 95 Active Projects

Ninety-five projects that fall into quartiles 2, 3 and 4 are listed as “Active.” HCFCD says it will move forward with any projects already in progress. But it’s unclear whether future stages will be implemented, i.e., moving from engineering to construction. We may know more in September.

HUD Project Deadlines Tightened Even More

Yesterday’s decision could affect U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) CDBG-MIT and CDBG-DR grants under review by the Texas General Land Office (GLO). Harris County Flood Control applied for 29 such grants.

HCFCD says they are moving forward with all HUD projects.

But GLO stressed the tightness of a February 28, 2027 deadline for 11 CDBG-DR projects valued at roughly $320 million. With only 20 months remaining to complete the projects, County Commissioners voted yesterday to take another three months to schedule projects.

For that group of projects, deadlines may be a bigger threat than funding. Think 17 months is plenty of time? It’s taken Harris County four years to get to this point with these projects! More uncertainty won’t speed things up.

Before the meeting, GLO Commissioner Dawn Buckingham warned county leaders to use the HUD funds “as quickly as possible.”

How Meeting Unfolded

Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a master of political theater, packed the first two hours of Commissioners Court with surrogates during the public-comment portion of the meeting. The same people and groups that Ellis used to tarnish previous Harris County Flood Control District administrators showed up again. They even carried similar signs.

Over and over and over again, they complained about the lack of bond-program:

• Equity
• Results
• Transparency

Dr. Tina Petersen, executive director of HCFCD, then led off the discussion with a PowerPoint presentation that she had been working to compile since February. The last slide shows how her team explored five different scenarios for maximizing available funding. (See her entire detailed report here.)

That set the stage for Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ 20-minute boilerplate rant about historical discrimination against poor neighborhoods and how rich neighborhoods get all the money.

Disconnect between Ellis Rant and Reality

But there’s a basic disconnect between the rant and reality. Note that of all HCFCD spending since 2000, money has gone disproportionately to watersheds with a majority low-to-moderate-income (LMI) population. Between 2000 and 2022, 61% went to the one third of watersheds with an LMI-majority population. So, poor watersheds already receive the lion’s share of funding – almost twice as much as middle and upper income areas.

Regardless, Ellis was on a roll. And by the time he was done, three of his Democratic colleagues (Hidalgo, Garcia and Briones) were demanding more equity.

They voted to ignore all five of the scenarios that Petersen spent months working on and focus only on projects that ranked high on Ellis’ equity scale.

When Ramsey pointed out that one of the poorest neighborhoods in Precinct 3, Barrett Station, was defunded, Ellis shot back that his equity formula was “agnostic” to politics. But the numbers tell a different story.

Little wonder that the county released no information on this issue before the vote yesterday. Opposition to Ellis’ ringers might have had time to organize.

Expect frequent updates on this in coming months as the situation evolves.

To view video of the discussion, look for Item 2 here. Public appearances come before Item Two, and there are several breaks during the discussion.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/27/25 at 4PM

2859 Days since Hurricane Harvey