Land Office Rejects Harris County Plan, Leaving $113 Million in Harvey Flood Aid Unspent

The Texas General Land Office has rejected Harris County's request to move additional projects into a federal Hurricane Harvey recovery grant, the Texas Gazette reported. In an Oct. 14 letter to Harris County Flood Control District Executive Director Marcus Stuckett, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said the agency "cannot move forward with the project swaps." "While we were willing to consider your proposed project swaps several months ago, Harris County has once again failed to follow through on its commitments," Buckingham wrote, saying the county had not provided the complete information required by HUD and had not identified replacement projects for the swap.

The money comes from the 2017 Hurricane Harvey Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates and the Land Office administers in Texas. Harris County received $322 million in recovery funds and about $542 million in mitigation funds in 2022, the Texas Gazette reported, citing The Texan. HUD has approved a one-year extension moving the district's contract deadline to Feb. 29, 2028, covering more than $1.1 billion in project funding allocated to Harris County — but Stuckett wrote that project budgets reduced by low bids and scope changes mean the district now anticipates approximately $113 million in recovery funds will remain unallocated.

Stuckett offered two fixes, the Texas Gazette reported: moving seven subdivision drainage projects from the county's mitigation program into the recovery grant, which he said would leave no unallocated money, or shifting the completed Upper Cypress Creek Floodplain Preservation project and the ongoing Lauder Stormwater Detention Basin Phase 3A project, cutting the gap to $76 million. Buckingham disputed the district's account that the subdivision transfer was dropped over administrative burden at the state level. "This decision is not based on administrative burden," she wrote. "Rather, Texas still has substantial unmet needs from Hurricane Harvey, and the state cannot risk funds lapsing back to HUD because of Harris County's eventual failure to complete these projects."

The dispute has run for months, the Texas Gazette reported: in a June 8 letter Buckingham listed what she called Harris County's observed failures, including missed deadlines and repeated reprioritization, and the Land Office said then that roughly 84 percent of the time for the county's recovery projects had elapsed with less than 4 percent of their budgets expended. The district's then-director, Tina Petersen, resigned days later, and commissioners appointed Stuckett. An update on the grant, listed as Item 93 on the Oct. 15 Commissioners Court agenda, was pulled by Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia before Stuckett could present it and will now be considered Nov. 12, after the election. Stuckett has said the district intends to complete every project it has identified regardless of funding source, and the district faces spending deadlines for 28 federally funded recovery and mitigation projects worth roughly $868 million combined, the Texas Gazette reported, citing Community Impact.