7/14/25 – I incorrectly reported four totals in my 7/12/25 story about the revised 2025 first-quarter, flood-bond update. I would like to set the record straight. I would also like to apologize to people at the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) and my readers. I take great pains to present accurate, reliable information that readers can count on. And I want to correct the historical record for future reference.
What Happened
In the first iteration of the 2025 Q1 report, I found a billion-dollar discrepancy. HCFCD admitted the mistake and corrected it in the revised report.
While double checking the revised report, I thought I discovered some other inconsistencies between the high-level, summary information at the front and the backup documentation at the end. They included:
“Bond Funds”
“Partner Funds”
“Secured Funds”
“Funds Spent”
Unfortunately, the discrepancies resulted from an inaccurate automated export of data from a PDF file to Microsoft Excel. Four lines out of hundreds did not translate properly. Using different, third-party software, HCFCD did the same export/import operation and encountered the same problem.
Highlighted and enlarged translation error from PDF to Excel. Note how expenditures became misaligned.
So, the incredibly dedicated person I talked to manually copied and pasted hundreds of figures to double check the totals in a ten-page spreadsheet.
That led to the discovery of the translation error, which explained the inaccurate totals.
During the translation, the programs shrank the size of the type. So, the figures no longer appeared in their proper columns. They also became virtually invisible because of their small size.
New Totals Agree
After hours of checking, I’m confident that the totals in the documentation now agree with the claims in the introduction. For the record:
2018 Bond Funds = $2.5 billion
Partner Funds = $2,697,565,889 (rounded to $2.7 Billion)
Total Funds = $5,227,103,996 (rounded to $5.2 billion)
Total Spent to Date = $1,569,557,746.
Questions about Other Figures Still Unanswered
In my 7/12/25 post, I also raised other questions that HCFCD has not yet answered.
First, where does the half-billion dollar increase in work in progress during the first quarter come from? I don’t see it in construction activity on the ground, in bids, or in work approved by Commissioners Court.
Second:
Where does the $1.3 billion funding shortfall came from that HCFCD Executive Director Tina Petersen claimed in Commissioner Court?
Why did no mention of the shortfall appear in the 2024 Year-End Bond Update or either of the two first-quarter updates?
A Start on Answers
HCFCD is starting to work on answers to those questions. Regarding the $1.3 billion shortfall, an HCFCD spokeswoman said, “One of the big asks was to produce our (sometimes rough) estimates of unmet need. That fell into two categories:
Current unmet need – Funding needed to take current projects through construction, even if the bond only originally provided funds for a study or engineering work. A good example of this is the projects included in Bond ID F-14. (Planning, Right-Of-Way Acquisition, Design and Construction of General Drainage Improvements Near Kingwood.)
Future unmet need – Funding needed to take the next phase of a project through construction. Examples would include engineering work that showed we need channel conveyance improvements and a stormwater detention basin in an area, but we currently only have funding for the stormwater detention basin. Or if studies showed we could construct a four-compartment basin, but we currently only have funding for two compartments.
“That is not how we have managed the bond program to date, so it represented a shift in thinking. These were meant to be high-level estimates for discussion, not an actual estimate of need associated with the bond program.”
Working to Make Financial Reporting More Transparent
In working with HCFCD to resolve these an other questions, I found them very open and collaborative. At this point, I no longer feel they are trying to hide something.
I also have a greater appreciation for the complexities the 2018 bond program. Finding a way to summarize changes in scope on hundreds of projects and Bond IDs is difficult, especially when tracking money from multiple sources. From a communication point of view, it all comes down to inspiring trust instead of raising skepticism.
HCFCD has not yet agreed to any specific changes. But they did accept the challenge to find clearer ways to communicate.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/14/2025
2876 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.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Translation-Error.png?fit=2198%2C542&ssl=15422198adminadmin2025-07-14 18:02:312025-07-14 18:04:54Correction to Revised 2025 First-Quarter Flood-Bond Update Story
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.
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.
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.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2025-Q1-Report-Cover.jpg?fit=1100%2C721&ssl=17211100adminadmin2025-07-12 19:12:152025-07-15 07:43:55Revised HCFCD Report Still Contains Discrepancies Totaling Hundreds of Millions
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
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.
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
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…
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.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/20250710-Ramsey-Cover-Slide.jpg?fit=1100%2C617&ssl=16171100adminadmin2025-07-10 21:01:562025-07-11 09:28:40Commissioners Clarify Stance on Flood-Bond Partnership-Project Funding
Correction to Revised 2025 First-Quarter Flood-Bond Update Story
7/14/25 – I incorrectly reported four totals in my 7/12/25 story about the revised 2025 first-quarter, flood-bond update. I would like to set the record straight. I would also like to apologize to people at the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) and my readers. I take great pains to present accurate, reliable information that readers can count on. And I want to correct the historical record for future reference.
What Happened
In the first iteration of the 2025 Q1 report, I found a billion-dollar discrepancy. HCFCD admitted the mistake and corrected it in the revised report.
While double checking the revised report, I thought I discovered some other inconsistencies between the high-level, summary information at the front and the backup documentation at the end. They included:
Unfortunately, the discrepancies resulted from an inaccurate automated export of data from a PDF file to Microsoft Excel. Four lines out of hundreds did not translate properly. Using different, third-party software, HCFCD did the same export/import operation and encountered the same problem.
So, the incredibly dedicated person I talked to manually copied and pasted hundreds of figures to double check the totals in a ten-page spreadsheet.
That led to the discovery of the translation error, which explained the inaccurate totals.
During the translation, the programs shrank the size of the type. So, the figures no longer appeared in their proper columns. They also became virtually invisible because of their small size.
New Totals Agree
After hours of checking, I’m confident that the totals in the documentation now agree with the claims in the introduction. For the record:
Questions about Other Figures Still Unanswered
In my 7/12/25 post, I also raised other questions that HCFCD has not yet answered.
First, where does the half-billion dollar increase in work in progress during the first quarter come from? I don’t see it in construction activity on the ground, in bids, or in work approved by Commissioners Court.
Second:
A Start on Answers
HCFCD is starting to work on answers to those questions. Regarding the $1.3 billion shortfall, an HCFCD spokeswoman said, “One of the big asks was to produce our (sometimes rough) estimates of unmet need. That fell into two categories:
“That is not how we have managed the bond program to date, so it represented a shift in thinking. These were meant to be high-level estimates for discussion, not an actual estimate of need associated with the bond program.”
Working to Make Financial Reporting More Transparent
In working with HCFCD to resolve these an other questions, I found them very open and collaborative. At this point, I no longer feel they are trying to hide something.
I also have a greater appreciation for the complexities the 2018 bond program. Finding a way to summarize changes in scope on hundreds of projects and Bond IDs is difficult, especially when tracking money from multiple sources. From a communication point of view, it all comes down to inspiring trust instead of raising skepticism.
HCFCD has not yet agreed to any specific changes. But they did accept the challenge to find clearer ways to communicate.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/14/2025
2876 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.
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:
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:
Now compare that to the totals shown in the introductory graphic below. They’re in the same report!
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
In the meantime, Ramsey made three motions to help reduce uncertainty re: the county’s commitment to certain projects. He introduced motions to fund:
None of Ramsey’s motions received a second.
Ramsey Motions Modified by Ellis
Ellis then made a substitute motion which Ramsey agreed to:
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?
The junket includes:
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.