Director of budget and planning, Harris County

With about 20 years of experience in public accounting, audit services and private industry experience, Frank Bruce came to work for Harris County's tax office in March 1999.

Bruce assisted the department with collections and accounting for automobile registration and other fees before helping re-design the county's tax statement, implementing new software technology to allow Harris County taxpayers to view and pay their taxes online each year.

About five years later, Bruce was transferred to the budget office as part of the newly assigned E Business Results Team—a group responsible for working within different departments to improve technology and resolve issues.

After working with the department for several years, former county budget officer Dick Raycraft retired and was succeeded by Bill Jackson in December 2011. At this time, Bruce was promoted to the director of budget and planning for Harris County.

Bruce achieved his BBA in accounting from Texas A&M University in 1979 before returning to his hometown of Houston. After several years with Harris County, Bruce's department began working with other agencies and organizations to gather information for a population study to highlight areas of growth within the county, specifically in unincorporated areas. Increased mobility is the key to increased growth, Bruce said, and the toll road infrastructure maintained by commissioners in unincorporated areas has assisted with further development.

What are a few tasks the Budget Management Department works on for Harris County?

Budget Management develops and monitors the annual budgets for Harris County entities and presents the budgets to Commissioners Court in February. We also conduct the Capital Improvement Projects review with Commissioners Court in June and provide the mid-year review in September, which summarizes the first six months and updates the court on issues coming up for the second half of the year.

Budget Management also prepares the agenda for all court meetings and includes the Human Resources and Risk Management function for the county with David Kester as director. This is an important component since Labor and Benefits make up more than 70 percent of our budget.

Budget Management also includes Financial Management with Mike Austin as director. Mike and his staff deal with cash, investments and debt.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

Harris County experienced tremendous growth throughout the first decade of this century. Departments within the county grew each year to meet the increased demand for services. Then, when the economy stopped growing, the budget office had to install a hiring and salary freeze and recommend budget reductions.

Property taxes have started to grow again, and one of the biggest challenges is making sure that we are able to re-build reserves and balance the demand for services within our available resources.

Another challenge is the size and complexity of a county as large as Harris County. From the 2000 census to 2010, the unincorporated area of Harris County grew by more than 600,000 residents, which is the equivalent of adding a city like Boston, Atlanta or Denver to the third largest county in the U.S. The county does everything from providing law enforcement, administration of justice and infrastructure, including flood control and the tollroad system, and funding the hospital district and the Port of Houston debt.

In addition to the general fund, there are hundreds of grant funds and thousands of accounts that make for a complex system both for budgeting and accounting.

Were budget cuts made in 2012?

Harris County has a fiscal year that goes from March 1 through Feb. 28. There were no budget cuts in the 2012–13 budget year that is nearly over. There were budget cuts two years ago in response to lower available resources. The cuts were across the board in nature and didn't affect a particular segment or function more than any other.

Do you expect to see cuts, or growth this year?

There are indications that this area will continue to do well economically, and the housing market seems to be back in a growth mode.

What changes can Harris County residents expect to see in 2013?

It appears likely that budgets will be the same or higher for most departments. A new procedure allowing the departments to roll over unspent funds from last year was proposed and approved by Commissioners Court last March. This change is designed to improve reserves and allow individual departments to better manage spending.

How do you gather information for the county population report, and why is it important to Harris County?

I started doing the population report in 2004 after a report from Mike Montgomery, the Harris County fire marshal, reported there was unprecedented growth in demand for his department's services in the unincorporated area.

I use the information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Harris County Appraisal District, the Texas Education Agency and other sources to analyze the population growth within Harris County.

Our group, working with the Public Infrastructure Department, developed some mapping tools that make it easier to analyze the information by census tracts or census blocks. Harris County includes about 650 tracts used by the Census Bureau to count population, and there are more than 2,500 blocks, which are a further breakdown of census tracts. I also look at the populations of other large counties in the U.S. and Texas.

There are several amazing observations in the population report, including the fact that the unincorporated area would be the fifth largest city in the U.S. and second largest in Texas, if it were a city. I don't see anything that is going to cause the growth in unincorporated areas to slow down. While there is certainly some re-development inside the loop and within the city limits, there is so much area, particularly to the north and west, that will likely be developed that I expect the growth to continue.