Harris County Commissioners to Discuss HCFCD Exec Director’s Employment…Again
6/5/2026 – Harris County published the agenda for its 6/11/26 Commissioners Court meeting today and Item #483 relates to the employment of Dr. Tina Petersen, PhD, PE. It reads “Request by the Commissioner of Precinct 3 for an Executive Session pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074(a) for discussion and possible action regarding the Executive Director of the Harris County Flood Control District.”
Petersen’s performance has come under increasing scrutiny lately because of the possible loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The potential loss relates to looming deadlines on projects which Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) will miss according to its own schedules. HCFCD’s May 18, 2026, update on the projects showed that 19 of 29 CDBG projects worth $649 million will miss their deadlines:
- February 28, 2027 for 6 of 11 CDBG-DR projects valued at $245.8 million
- March 31, 2028 for 13 of 18 CDBG-MIT projects valued at $362.7 million.
That raises several questions:
- Why will projects miss deadlines?
- Who is responsible?
- Can anything be done to preserve the funding?
Why Projects Could Miss Deadlines
In recent meetings, as Harris County Commissioners became increasingly concerned about impending deadlines; they forced Petersen to become specific about where projects stood, instead of offering up rosy generalizations.
As alarms started sounding, Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who reportedly lobbied to hire Petersen, became her chief apologist. Garcia pointed fingers at the Texas General Land Office, which administers HUD funds in Texas. He complained about undefined problems with the 2018 flood bond. And he constantly wailed about “there was never enough time.”
Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey PE bemoaned the lack of hard data coming from HCFCD that would let commissioners make informed decisions and offer help. He also tried to speed up county processes.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis simply warned Petersen about “a day of reckoning.”
Precinct 4 Commissioner Leslie Briones expressed deep concerns.
Judge Lina Hidalgo said bluntly that she had lost all confidence in Petersen.
When Petersen finally submitted two detailed reports on May 1 and May 18, the depth of the problem became apparent.
But even before then, anyone who looked closely at how long it takes to construct these projects and how little time remained could see two trains heading down the tracks toward each other.
The Mercer Stormwater Detention Basin illustrates the problem. While not part of this particular group, it has a similar scope. The project should have taken Petersen a year to build on an expedited basis, but took four years. To put that in context, less than 9 months remain before the 11 CDBG-DR projects reach their deadline of February 28, 2027.
But the slowdown wasn’t just in construction. The Preliminary Engineering Report on the Kingwood Diversion Ditch was supposed to take 300 days and took more than 1400.
These projects hint at causes for delays that go far deeper than Garcia suggests. They are unrelated to the GLO and HUD.
Who is Responsible for Missing Deadlines?
The buck stops with Tina Petersen.
Since announcing the $322 million CDBG Disaster Relief grant for HCFCD in 2023, the GLO has tried to speed things up. GLO even embedded as many as seven people within HCFCD to help accelerate submission of data related to the 11 projects – something they didn’t do with any other county or municipality in Texas.
Can Anything Be Done to Preserve Funding?
Late today, HCFCD published a notice on its press briefing page under the headline: “Harris County agencies are advancing an innovative path forward to protect federal disaster recovery funding, cut through bureaucratic barriers, and keep critical flood risk reduction projects moving for residents.”
The lead paragraph says, “The proposed approach goes beyond standard government processes by coordinating across agencies, funding programs, and project timelines to solve complex federal funding challenges.”
The glowing prose was reminiscent of previous Tina Petersen briefings in Commissioners Court. It also reminded me a bit of the Enron debacle, although the GLO claims the scheme is legal under HUD rules. Today’s statement outlines the plan. It includes:
- “Phasing projects across programs so eligible work can move forward under CDBG-DR while remaining project scope is delivered through CDBG-MIT.”
- “Moving seven fast-moving subdivision drainage projects into the CDBG-DR program to maximize eligible spending before the federal deadline and free up approximately $125 million in HCD’s CDBG-MIT program for additional mitigation work.
- “Continuing to identify eligible opportunities for any remaining CDBG-DR funds, including planning studies, additional subdivision drainage projects, project transfers, and acceleration strategies.”
The statement does not explain how Petersen intends to do more projects for the same dollars. Nor does it explain how she intends to complete those projects without speeding them up. She’s appears to be playing a shell game with more than $800 million tax dollars that will make auditing more difficult. However, in fairness, HCFCD says it will provide more details in a Tuesday press conference.
This scheme/plan will also be considered in commissioners court on 6/11/26 under Item #125.
Related Items for Discussion on 6/11/26
Other related HCFCD items on Thursday’s agenda include two staff augmentation proposals totaling $32 million for outside contractors to provide program management, project management, construction management, and inspection services for the development and implementation of CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT projects.
- #248 Approval of $6 million for Jacobs Engineering
- #267 Approval of $10 million for BGE, Inc; $10 million for Quiddity Engineering; and $6 million for WSP USA
One wonders whether those expenditures would have been necessary had HCFCD been getting projects into production faster.
Other related items include:
- #383 Transmittal of the 5/18/26 CDBG status update
- #384 Update on 2018 Flood Bond projects
More news to follow on HCFCD’s CDBG plan after the press conference on Tuesday.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/5/2026
3202 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.
