Revised HCFCD Report Still Contains Discrepancies Totaling Hundreds of Millions

Corrections on 7/14/25 include revisions to the four items in the bulleted list below. All of those discrepancies have been resolved. See the post that supersedes this one. However, the last two questions about the amount of new projects in Q1 and the $1.3 billion dollar shortfall remain.

7/12/25 – Harris County Flood Control District admits that it made a huge mistake in its 2025 first quarter Flood-Bond Update released two weeks ago. The report showed accounting discrepancies totaling more than a billion dollars. As a result of media attention, the District released a revised Q1 report late yesterday afternoon.

But many discrepancies still remain…both within the revised report itself and when comparing the revised report to the 2024 Year-End Report. Several numbers appear to be far off, including:

“Bond Funds” – $107 million
“Partner Funds” – $289 million
“Secured Funds” – $370 million
“Funds Spent” – $252 million.

HCFCD also claims to have put $504 million “Bond Dollars to Work” in the first three months of this year without explaining where the money went.

Nor does the revised report explain what HCFCD’s director Dr. Tina Petersen claims is a $1.3 billion shortfall in funding needed to complete the bond.

See details below.

Basis for This Post

I compared HCFCD’s 2024 Year-End Report with its Revised 2025 Q1 Report. I also compared information from different parts of the Q1 report itself.

The new first-quarter report contains two types of information: High-level summary information in the introduction and backup documentation at the end. The two don’t agree with each other.

But it’s hard to see because HCFCD doesn’t provide totals or subtotals in the 8-page backup spreadsheet. So, I exported the PDF to Microsoft Excel and totaled the columns myself. Here’s what I found.

Bond, Partner, Total Secured Funds

The backup spreadsheet shows:

*Calculated from backup documentation in Revised Q1 Report.*

Now compare that to the totals shown in the introductory graphic below. They’re in the same report!

*Screen capture from page two of revised First Quarter 2025 Bond Update.*

The bond DID include $2.5 billion worth of taxpayer funds. But the backup shows $107 million less. And $289 million less in partner funds. Plus, the total secured funds disagree by almost $370 million. Which set of figures should we believe?

$252 Million Discrepancy in Funds Spent

The backup documentation at the end of the report shows that roughly $1.317 billion has been spent to date.

But the graphic upfront claims $1.569 billion was spent. That’s a $252 million discrepancy.

*Screen capture from Page 5 of revised 2025 Q1 bond update.*

Unexplained Half Billion Dollars of Work Initiated in 3 Months

If you look at the two screen captures below, you would think that Flood Control initiated $504 million dollars worth of work in the first quarter.

Flood Bond Funds Spent or in progress — *Screen captures from 2024 Year End and Revised 2025 Q1 Reports.*

Where is it? I don’t see that big of a difference on the ground, in press releases, or projects approved by Commissioners Court in the first three months of the year. And the reports shed no light.

The difference in three months approximately equals one third of all the funds HCFCD claims to have spent in seven years.

We Need Revisions to the Revisions

Some might conclude “deliberate deception.” I have no evidence of that. But I do believe that the work shows a shocking and unprofessional level of attention to detail. Had they simply totaled the columns in their spreadsheet, they would have noticed many of these discrepancies.

I wonder whether the numbers being communicated to Commissioners contain the same misinformation. And whether Commissioners are making policy decisions based on bad information. (HCFCD claims they are not.)

Regardless, we need yet another revision to the first quarter report. Also…

We Need Independent Audit and Explanations

We need an independent audit of HCFCD accounting. We also need explanations for these discrepancies.

HCFCD admits it made a billion-dollar mistake in the watershed spending totals that I pointed out two weeks ago. You would think they would have been hyper-vigilant this time around.

I don’t know why the data quality is so poor. I have observed, however, that:

The Q1 report introduction makes Tina Petersen’s performance look much better than the backup documentation.
The billion dollar discrepancy previously reported in “funds remaining” helped Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis make a case for cutting projects that didn’t fall into the top quartile of his equity index.

Hmmmm. Those are my opinions.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/12/2025

2874 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.