Commissioners Clarify Stance on Flood-Bond Partnership-Project Funding

7/10/25 – In today’s Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, the Court clarified its stance on funding flood-bond partnership projects in the face of spending cuts announced in the last meeting.

Commissioners revisited a vote on a motion from their 6/26/25 meeting that cast doubt over completion of 80% of the projects in the 2018 flood bond. Among them were many projects that involved money pledged by partners at the federal, state and local levels.

Today’s meeting clarified that Commissioners do intend to fund partnership projects that fell below the first quartile on Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Framework. Including more flood gates for Lake Houston.

Revisiting Vote that Potentially Defunded Partnership Projects

Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey kicked off the discussion on Item 277. (Note, however, that the video, which starts at approximately 58 minutes, calls it #177.)

The debate addressed the consequences of the vote in the last meeting to focus all remaining money in the bond on the top quartile of equity projects.

Further, the 6/26/25 motion said that future phases of those projects would also be funded – even if they weren’t included in the original bond.

That motion from June was approved 4:1 along party lines. However at the time, Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey warned that it could potentially impact projects that had already received federal, state and local funding commitments. Partners included FEMA, HUD, the Texas Water Development Board, cities, and MUDs.

And, in fact, a scramble occurred among officials at all those levels as well as affected citizens to understand what the impacts were. They wanted to know whether Harris County was still committed to projects it originally had promised to help fund.

Prominent among those was the project to add more floodgates to the Lake Houston Dam. The County had pledged to donate $20 million to that project to complement more than $100 million pledged by other parties. But the project did not even receive an equity ranking.

Before the debate, Houston District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger spoke to Court about how important the gate project was. He addressed water security as well as flood safety. He also reminded commissioners about damage to the Lake Livingston dam after massive rains in May 2024. Flickinger’s message was clear: jeopardizing the water supply for more than two million people is unthinkable.

Ramsey Presents A Simplified Bond-Spending Analysis

Commissioner Ramsey presented much simpler bond-spending analysis than HCFCD had in the previous meeting.

And he arrived at very different conclusions. Ramsey made several key points.

• The county needed to send a clear message about its commitment to HUD CDBG projects regardless of which quartile they fell into.
• We have enough money left in the bond for many projects below the first quartile, plus contingency funds if we don’t fund future projects not in the original bond.
• Decisions about funding should be on a project-by-project basis. But that may take several months to work through.

In the meantime, Ramsey made three motions to help reduce uncertainty re: the county’s commitment to certain projects. He introduced motions to fund:

• All current needs of projects with CDBG commitments
• Gates for Lake Houston (CI-028) and Buffalo Bayou Storage and Channel Conveyance Improvements (CI-017) for TIRZ 17
• All current needs for Quartile 1

None of Ramsey’s motions received a second.

Ramsey Motions Modified by Ellis

Ellis then made a substitute motion which Ramsey agreed to:

“To fund all existing CDBG and other secured partnerships and grants tied to the Harris County 2018 Flood Bond.”

Ellis’ substitute motion carried unanimously. In other news…

Outrageous Travel Costs Approved

Also on the agenda was an $8,120 Flood Control District request for one person to attend a three day convention in San Francisco.

Ramsey made a motion to approve all spending requests except that one. However, the other commissioners and the county judge approved the junket.

The voting confused many viewers who initially thought Ramsey’s motion to kill the request was approved. That’s because of an unexplained two-part procedure for such motions.

Ramsey provided this clarification. “If we are pulling expenses out of a list of expenses, the process is for the Court to approve all expenses except the one I targeted. Then someone else makes a motion to approve the one I pulled. And that vote passed 3 to 1.”

Still confused?

All parties involved have confirmed the trip IS still on.

Commissioner Ramsey and HCFCD

The junket includes:

• $3500 for three nights in a hotel when rooms could be booked through the convention sponsors for $249 per night.
• $1700 for a registration fee listed at $945
• $1500 for airfare that could be booked through Expedia for $185.

A HCFCD spokesperson explained that “The amount submitted was a rough estimate and is intended to provide an upper limit for approval and include buffers.”

Then she added, “All actual expenses are paid at reasonable market rates and in line with applicable public-sector pricing policies.”

No wonder we’re debating which projects to cut!

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/10/2025

2872 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.