2024 Year End Bond Update Archives

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.

7/4/2025 – Let the fireworks begin early today. Comparing the two most recent flood-bond updates – Year End 2024 and First Quarter 2025 – shows that HCFCD spent about $44 million in the first quarter. But more than a billion dollars has disappeared from “funds remaining” during the same period.

*Totals should offset each other, but they don’t.*

This isn’t simply moving money from one side of the ledger to the other. Something else is going on here that’s hidden from plain view. Below is the raw spending data reported by HCFCD for the two time periods.

*Click here for a high-res printable PDF.*

As I stared at these, problem after problem emerged. For instance, HCFCD “spent” only one dollar in the Spring Creek Watershed, but “funds remaining” mysteriously went down by almost $12.5 million. It’s like that for virtually every watershed.

We need an immediate audit by an independent state agency.

Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) released the reports after the last commissioners court meeting on 6/26/25. In that meeting, HCFCD executive director Dr. Tina Petersen claimed the county could be short as much as $1.3 billion to fulfill promises made to the public during the 2018 flood-bond election.

Four Democrats on Commissioners Court then used that as an excuse to reallocate all remaining funds to projects that scored the highest on Rodney Ellis’ Equity Prioritization Framework. Only the lone Republican, Tom Ramsey, raised an objection.

A Billion Dollars Goes MIA with Suspicious Timing

Interestingly, HCFCD released the two bond updates simultaneously but AFTER the court discussion. The timing precluded any public analysis of the reports before the meeting in which Commissioners reallocated all the remaining money in the bond to “equity” projects. The timing also precluded any public comment on the accounting and reallocation.

Debits and Credits Don’t Match

The two Flood Bond updates contain lists of watersheds with “money spent” and “remaining money available.” But the columns are not totaled. That’s always a suspicious practice from an accounting point of view.

So, I totaled and compared them:

HCFCD spent only $43.9 million in the first quarter. But $1.1 billion less remains in the till.

And no one thought to explain that!? Where did the money go? The public needs an answer!

Large Amounts Disappear In Virtually Every Watershed

Here’s how the billion dollars that mysteriously vaporized affected the San Jacinto Watershed.

*After spending only **$168** **thousand**, “funds remaining” decreased by almost **$143** **million** without explanation.*

Backup documentation in the report showed only one line item changed during this time period and only for $169,000. It provides no clue where $143 million went.

Other notable unexplained decreases included:

$726.7 million in Countywide Funds
$168 million in the Clear Creek Watershed
$77 million in the Buffalo Bayou Watershed
$59 million in Halls Bayou

One Billion Dollars Goes “Poof”!

Such unexplained decreases added up to the mysterious disappearance of $1,073,078,534.

Only Greens Bayou and Brays Bayou showed substantial increases. They totaled $80.3 million – not nearly enough to compensate for decreases in other watersheds. So this was not simply about moving money from one watershed to another.

Open one report and you see the cash. Open the next and you don’t. No explanation provided.

But it gets worse.

No Mention of Trouble in Bond Updates

Neither of the bond updates warns the public about any impending crisis in bond funding. Just the opposite.

The 2024 Year-End Report says…

The County is “exceeding the original goal of the program and removing any funding uncertainty.”
Page 6 of 2024 Year End Bond Update

If this were the private sector, the Securities and Exchange Commission would investigate that.

Smoke and Mirrors Should Trigger Immediate Audit

There’s too much here that just doesn’t add up. We need an audit by the Texas Attorney General or U.S. Department of Justice immediately to see if money has really disappeared. I’m not alleging fraud. This could simply be a case of incompetence, sloth, mislabeling, bad proofreading, or the sloppiest financial reporting ever.

Yet Dr. Tina Petersen, head of HCFCD, just received a salary increase of almost $90,000. She now makes $434,000. That’s $65,477 dollars more than HCFCD spent on 11 of the county’s 23 watersheds in the first quarter – combined! Altogether, those 11 watersheds received only $368,533 from HCFCD.

For More Information

Here are the full 2024 Year End and 2025 First Quarter Reports. See pages 8 and 9 in the 2024 report and page 6 in the 2025 report (shown in screen capture above).

Read them. Then write your county and state representatives today and demand an investigation.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7/4/25

2866 Days since Hurricane Harvey

Tag Archive for: 2024 Year End Bond Update

Revised HCFCD Report Still Contains Discrepancies Totaling Hundreds of Millions