What's happening
The 10 a.m. meeting will involve public hearings on:
- The proposed Harris County tax rate of $0.38530 per $100 of valuation
- The proposed Harris County Flood Control District's tax rate of $0.04897 per $100 of valuation
The proposed county tax rate of $0.38530 is higher than the voter-approval rate of $0.38529. The HCFCD's proposed rate of $0.04897 is also higher than the voter-approval rate of $0.03316.
If commissioners adopt the higher rates on Aug. 15, Harris County residents will get a chance to vote on whether to approve or deny the rate increases as part of the Nov. 5 election, officials from the Office of Management and Budget said.
Zooming In
At a July 15 Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, Tina Petersen, Harris County Flood Control District executive director, addressed the district's deferred maintenance projects and the price tag associated with aging infrastructure. With the county's population growth and the increasing number of assets the flood control district has to oversee, Petersen said at least $1 billion in project maintenance costs are being deferred.
"This is a problem decades in the making. [The Harris County Flood Control District] is 87 years old. Many large investments have been made in the organization's history, but quite a number of them were in the '50s and '60s," Petersen said.
Zooming out
The FY 2023-24 budget for Harris County was $2.4 billion. Budget Director Daniel Ramos said last year that inflation, and jail and health care costs were among the biggest contributors to increasing expenses in the county. Ramos will present to commissioners on Aug. 15 how funding will effect the county's 86 operating departments in the upcoming year.
