Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Thomas Ramsey PE will discuss the proposed 2024 budget and a potential county tax increase Wednesday at 6 PM at the George H.W. Bush Community Center in Spring.

The community center is at 6827 Cypresswood Drive.

Bring Your Questions

Scan the QR code below to familiarize yourself with the budget. After answering a few high-level questions, it takes you to a summary of this year’s shortfall and ways you could make it up – if you don’t want to raise taxes.

Where to Review the Proposed Budget

The web address listed on the right takes you to a page that includes links to the actual budget documents for past years and this year. Comparing them lets you see how priorities have changed.

The amount of expenses you have to cut if you don’t want to increase taxes is about $200 million.

At the same time, we have critical needs in criminal justice and “maintenance and operations.” For instance, Beryl just trashed the entire county. I’ve created several recent posts that talk about the need to clear ditches and streams of blockages.

Here’s a Harris County Flood Control District presentation that summarizes its needs. And HCFCD is just one department within the county. So what to do?

Come prepared to talk about what you would cut.

Commissioner Ramsey should have a few suggestions in that regard.

Your Needs, Your Dollars, Your Decision

I’m not going to make any recommendations about the proposed county tax increase. While there certainly are legitimate needs, I’ve been burned too many times in recent years by broken promises under the guise of equity.

In selling the 2018 Flood Bond, the county told us it would fix the worst flooding first. But we’re no longer allocating bond money on the basis of flood damage.

With the 2022 Bond, Democrats promised to give each precinct a guaranteed minimum. That lasted until the day after voters approved the bond. How many times will people fall for the false promises?

Some Thought Starters and Head Scratchers

I’d like to see wasteful spending cut. For instance, today we learned about corruption charges by County DA Kim Ogg brought against a county employee responsible for distributing ballot paper during the botched 2022 election.

According to the complaint, the employee allegedly held a private-sector engineering job that paid $250,000 while also being paid $90,000 by the county to distribute ballot paper. Miraculously, most of the paper he failed to distribute was in Republican-leaning precincts.

By the way, on Election Day 2022, the employee reported working 18 hours for Harris County but also claimed to work 8 hours for his other employer. 

Then, of course, there was the whole issue of replacing an election system that had worked well for years (in which elected officials oversaw elections) with an Elections Administrator’s Office. Someone with no election experience headed that office, which terribly botched the narrow 2022 election. She hired more political friends, also with no experience.

Luckily, that $15-million line item got the axe. See page 101 in the budget.

But the $21-million budget for the Office of County Administration did not. That was another Hidalgo innovation that previous administrations did not feel the need for. That department’s budget tripled in two years. (Line 200, Page 100)

And can someone tell me why public defender expenses have more than doubled in less than 2 years? (Page 101)

The closer you look at this year’s proposed budget, the more questions you will have. Bring your list to the:

George HW Bush Community Center

Thursday at 6PM.

6827 Cypresswood Drive, Spring, TX

Please don’t blame the proposed county tax increase on Commissioner Ramsey. He is a conservative voice of reason and responsibility on Commissioners Court.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/14/24

2542 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.