For 6 weeks, two Republican council members have no-showed meetings to dodge a tax-increase for Harris County. Time ran out, so no increase.
And because of that, they effectively defunded the DAs office and police.
$5.4 million for the Harris County District Attorney's office and $16.6 million for the Sheriff's office that would have funded patrol and administration, to be exact.
In the two districts of the absentees, Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman and Precinct 5 Constable Ted Heap, who have supported the GOP commissioners' quorum break, lose $2.8 million and $1.8 million respectively under the no new revenue rate.
In the past, county departments could “roll over” their unspent budget from one year to the next "with no questions asked," according to County Administrator David Berry.
But after Democrat Lina Hidalgo was elected county judge in 2018, the county did away with the unusual budgeting technique and adopted more traditional budgeting practices — similar to what the state requires of its own agencies and their funding.
The tension over law enforcement funding has been mounting for weeks, boiling over at the Oct. 11 meeting, when constable deputies lined the hallways and filled the courtroom as part of an organized effort to pressure the court to increase their budgets.
The impacts of the no new revenue rate will extend far beyond law enforcement.
The Harris County Flood Control District loses its proposed $23 million increase, while the Harris Health system budget decreases from the proposed $957 million to $822 million. The Harris Health system includes Ben Taub and Lyndon B. Johnson hospitals, both of which treat a large share of uninsured, low-income residents and people of color, and also operates more than 30 clinics throughout Harris County.
On Tuesday, Cagle and Ramsey both celebrated the news that the county had defaulted to the no new revenue rate.
“Despite Judge Hidalgo’s increasingly shrill political diatribes, today was actually a very good day for the taxpayers of Harris County," Cagle said in a statement. "By 'voting with our feet,' Commissioner Tom S. Ramsey and I were able to stop the $257 million tax increase favored by the court majority. Now would be a good time for county government to reassess the recent spending increases that have led to so many new and unneeded county agencies run by overpaid bureaucrats. Instead, we can return to a fiscally sound system of providing the basic services that taxpayers expect – public safety, flood protection, parks and constituent service.”
In February, Cagle and Ramsey pitched a budget proposal that would have resulted in more than 1,000 employees losing their jobs to free up funds to hire a similar number of new employees, mostly in law enforcement, according to an analysis by the county budget office.
At the time, Ramsey suggested he would not support a budget that did not fully fund the requests from county law enforcement agencies. He said the county’s three funding priorities should be “crime, crime, and crime.”
