By David Taylor / Managing Editor
The ballot on Nov. 5 will feature a school bond for Houston ISD, and a tax rate increase for the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) that will affect everyone in the county.
Currently, the Flood Control District receives two cents (.02) for every $100 value to fund the maintenance side of the District’s unending work.
In an interview with Houston Public Media, Dr. Christina “Tina” Petersen, director for HCFCD, explained why there was a need to raise the tax rate.
“One of the things that we have been working on this past summer is looking at the magnitude of the deferred maintenance problem that the Flood Control District has as well as what is the amount of funding that’s needed to address that problem,” she said. “What we’ve seen is over the last few years, the amount of assets that the District has taken on has more than doubled, meanwhile the investments to maintain those assets has remained flat.”
Petersen said their work is divided two-fold into bonds and maintenance.
“Thanks to the support of the voters in 2018, we have a $2.5 billion program that we have implemented which is now being matched by $2.7 billion dollars in funding fro partnerships and grants. A total of $5.2 billion worth of work that is currently underway,” she described it.
At least one-third of those capital projects have been completed with the other two-thirds underway.
“During Hurricane Beryl, we saw very little structural damage so we know that the projects that we’ve been working on protected homes all over Harris County,” she said in the interview.
The other side of the coin is maintenance, which is equally important she said, including mowing, repairs, and much more.
“That is why we are asking Harris County voters to approve a new adopted tax rate which is an increase of 1.581 cents per $100 in property value. The impact to a homeowner would be approximately $600 for an average home owner of about $380,000,” she explained.
Commissioners approved the tax rate vote in August.
During several town hall meetings, Petersen said she heard constituents concerns with ponding, channel sediment building up debris, and other challenges. She says the funding will help them address the concerns much quicker and help them keep up with the new assets they’ve obtained over the previous years with growth.
The 1.581 cent rate increase would be added to the current .02 cent rate. She also pointed out that because of recently declared disasters in Harris County, Commissioners Court is able to temporarily increase the overall Harris County tax rate by 8 percent to mitigate costs related to the disasters. This is fully separate from the Flood Control District’s funding needs.
HOUSTON ISD BOND
Houston ISD is asking voters to approve two propositions on a bond totaling $4.4 billion, the largest in Texas history. Proposition A is the issuance of $3,960,000,000 schoolhouse bonds by the District for new school buildings and renovation and expansion of existing school buildings (including safety and security infrastructure for such school buildings), the purchase of necessary sites for school buildings and the imposition of taxes sufficient to pay the principal of and interest on the bonds and the costs of any credit agreements executed in connection with the bonds. Proposition B is the issuance of $440,000,000 schoolhouse bonds by the District to address technology equipment and systems, technology infrastructure, instruction technology and the imposition of taxes sufficient to pay the principal of and interest on the bonds and the costs of any credit agreements executed in connection with the bonds.
Virtually every campus in the district receives security updates and some 80-plus campuses will receive some form of either rebuild or renovation.
The bond proposed by HISD will not increase the district’s debt tax rate, but an individual property owner’s tax bill can increase as a result of increasing property values over time.
Both Republican and Democrat parties have spoken out against the bond, but not all are against it.
“I get why people might want to go with the ‘no trust’ and that whole thing, and let’s use this vote as a way to defeat this. But that means we put off this bond for another couple of years, and I think for a lot of kids, we don’t have that time to wait,” said Dr. Bob Sanborn, the President and CEO of Children at Risk in an interview with FOX 26.