As Harris County Increases Taxes, Spending Remains a Mystery

9/27/26 – Harris County just passed the largest tax increase in its history. But it provides very little transparency in how it spends taxpayer money. For example, try digging into how the county spends money from its 2022 Bond Program.

What Voters Approved in 2022

In November 2022, voters approved Harris County Engineering’s three-part $1.2 billion bond program. It included:

Proposition	Purpose	Authorized
A	Public Safety Facilities	$100 million
B	Roads, Bridges, Transportation	$900 million
C	Parks and Trails	$200 million
Total		$1.200 billion

No Spending Data on Engineering Department Website

Yet, I can find no discussion of bond expenditures on the Engineering Department’s website. It contains only one mention of dollars “committed” (see below). ALTOGETHER, the county has so far committed $242 million. But Engineering doesn’t tell us what for.

After four years, Engineering’s website shows NO:

• Breakdowns of spending among Public Safety, Roads and Parks
• Project lists
• Spending by precinct
• Explanation for the sudden drop-off in spending for 2026.

I had to look elsewhere, without much luck, for that information.

The County’s Universal Services Department contains a dashboard that includes Engineering expenses for FY2025. But I couldn’t find one for the current fiscal year.

And the County’s Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) “Open Budget Dashboard” hasn’t worked for months.

The hunt was on. A 2023 presentation on the 2022 Bond by Dr. Milton Rahman, the County Engineer, showed that within the $900 million dollars designated for Roads, Bridges and Transportation, six sub-categories existed:

• $200 million for neighborhood drainage
• $100 million for Road Rehabilitation
• $50 million for Multimodal Transportation
• $50 million for Vision Zero
• $200 million for Partnership Opportunities
• $300 million for General Road improvements.

Falling into an Information Black Hole

So, what did that money buy and where? That’s even harder to determine. Of the $242 million supposedly “committed” to date from the 2022 Bond, I could find no detailed information on money actually spent. However, I did find high-level information in the County’s 531-page Proposed FY2027 budget about totals “encumbered” in the three main categories. Encumbered means purchase orders have been issued for projects; it does not mean work has been paid for.

The Proposed 2027 budget says that:

• All of the $100 million in the Public Safety portion of the 2022 bond has been committed to eight projects (see page 81). But the budget provides no further breakdown.
• Approximately a third of the 2022 Park bonds have been issued or encumbered, but we don’t know where or for what.
• $45.3 million (5%) of the $900 million in Road bonds has been encumbered, leaving approximately $855 million remaining. NO bonds have been issued yet in this category, which includes $200 million for Drainage Improvements.

And yet earlier this month, the Engineering Department indicated that it had no money identified for projects in its Master Drainage Plan and that it would likely have to pass a new bond to pay for them.

So, it would seem that Harris County is about to ask for more bond money to improve Road Drainage when it has only encumbered 5% ($45.3 million) of the of the money approved in 2022 for Road Bonds.

The budget contains no breakdown showing how much each of the six subcategories has received from Road Bonds to date. But even if all of the $45.3 million went to Drainage Improvements, the percentage encumbered to date would still only amount to 22.7% ($45.3 out of $200 million).

So where is all the money going? Why does Harris County need more?

In fairness, many drainage projects started to date may still be in the engineering phase. Construction comes last and is usually the most expensive phase of a project’s lifecycle. So the percentages cited above may climb.

Perpetual Tax Increases Thrive in Perpetual Darkness

But the point is that perpetual tax increases thrive in perpetual darkness.

I’m not implying fraud. But…

The absence of reliable information makes informed debate impossible. It also makes results impossible to track and accountability impossible to determine.

Harris County Engineering:

• Provides no or little insight into how it spends taxpayer money
• May soon request another bond approval when it apparently has spent only a small portion of the last bond.

Against that backdrop, Harris County property taxes are going up by 7.6% next year – the largest increase in history.

For the record, Dr. Milton Rahman, executive director of Harris County Engineering, used to be Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia’s head engineer. Garcia voted FOR the massive tax increase and also proposed the 2022 Bond.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/27/26

3316 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.