Harris County commissioners split up $1.1B in bond funding for road, park projects

On Jan. 31, Harris County commissioners unanimously opted to divide $1.1 billion in bond funding for road and parks projects according to each precinct’s flooding and natural disaster vulnerability.

Of the $1.2 billion bond package approved by Harris County voters in November, $900 million was designated under Proposition B, which will allocate funds for roads, drainage and multimodal transportation projects. Proposition C—which totaled $200 million—will fund park and trail projects.

Proposition A, which designates $100 million in funding for public safety facilities, was not allocated during the Jan. 31 meeting.

Commissioners voted unanimously to allocate $175 million of propositions B and C to each county precinct and, in addition, the remaining 26.36% of funds will be divided among the four precincts based on the federal government’s Social Vulnerability Index metric. Each Harris County resident who received an SVI score higher than 75 was used to determine the amount of funding the precincts receive.

“I have obviously some of the wealthiest people and some of the poorest [living in Precinct 1],” Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said. “So ... SVI is a good measure.”

Precinct 2 had the highest number of citizens with an SVI over 75, totaling 533,289, followed by Precinct 1 with 425,532, Precinct 4 with 288,736 and Precinct 3 with 56,687.

To fund project management and administration, 10% of the $1.1 billion in bond funds will be allocated to Harris County’s engineering department, Garcia said. This will enable the department to perform administrative procedures throughout the bond project process, including creating a dashboard to track bond finances, according to county staff.

Rachel Carlton contributed to this report.