Correction 10/28/24 – The table showing maintenance dollars/square mile has been updated with maintenance dollars/stream miles, a more appropriate metric for maintenance dollars.

10/21/24 – Today is the first day of early voting. Knowing where maintenance dollars go may affect how you vote on Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) proposed 63% maintenance-tax increase.

Before you vote, you should know that maintenance dollars spent per stream mile in different watersheds vary by 28:1. And that the San Jacinto, Spring Creek, Little Cypress Creek, Luce Bayou and Cedar Bayou watersheds are among those that receive the fewest maintenance dollars per stream mile. They all fall in the bottom third.

Why HCFCD Requested Tax Increase

HCFCD says it needs the additional tax revenue because:

• Money available for maintenance has remained flat for many years, while…
• Assets needing maintenance have grown, especially since the 2018 flood bond.

Assets include flood-mitigation features, such as stormwater detention basins and channels. HCFCD has built many new ones with capital improvement funds from the bond.

What They Don’t Tell You in Flood-Tax Meetings

HCFCD has been holding in-person and virtual meetings throughout the county to explain the need for its proposed tax increase. But the one I attended did not offer any explanations for the magnitude of the tax increase.

Neither could/would HCFCD personnel answer my questions about the allocation of tax dollars among watersheds.

How, when, where, why, and on what basis will the new tax revenue be spent? My fear: another Equity Prioritization Framework for maintenance-tax dollars.

Where Money is Already Going

When looking at the data, it seems we may already have an equity prioritization framework for maintenance dollars – in practice if not in policy. To date, flood-bond dollars have gone disproportionately to watersheds where more than 50% of residents qualify as low-to-moderate income (LMI). See the eight highlighted in gold below.

The San Jacinto River watershed, Spring Creek, Little Cypress Creek, Cedar Bayou and Luce Bayou all fall predominantly within the Republican-led Precinct 3. And they all fall to the bottom of the list.

I suspect the highlighted watersheds above float higher because, as LMI-majority watersheds, they have received a disproportionate share of capital-improvement spending.

As a generalization, maintenance money follows capital-improvement spending. So, we can probably expect to see a continuation of that trend.

Other Factors Affecting Maintenance Spending

But ranking maintenance allocations is not as clearcut as ranking overall spending. In addition to watershed size, everal other factors also influence the need for maintenance. They include:

• Degree of development (Undeveloped areas require less maintenance.)
• Age of assets (New assets require less maintenance than older ones.)
• Severity of flooding (Larger floods erode more.)
• Type of asset (Is it a concrete channel or grass-lined? Concrete costs more to repair.)
• Size of watershed. (Larger watersheds convey more water, creating greater damage/erosion.)

Political factors also likely influence the allocation of dollars. For instance:

• Commissioner Rodney Ellis lives in the Brays Bayou watershed.
• Right now, HCFCD is juggling projects to raise the LMI percentage of HUD applications totaling $825 million. HUD requires 50%. HCFCD is trying to get the percentage to 70%.

All told, if you vote for the maintenance-tax increase, understand that you may not see as much benefit from it as other parts of the county…if you see any benefit at all. Nothing in the wording of the ballot item guarantees a fair share to each watershed.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/21/2024 and updated 10/28/24

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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.