{"id":394614,"date":"2026-08-01T09:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T09:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/394614\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T09:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T09:44:09","slug":"harris-county-slowdown-extends-beyond-hcfcd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/394614\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris County Slowdown Extends Beyond HCFCD"},"content":{"rendered":"

7\/31\/2026 \u2013 For the last few years, I\u2019ve posted about the slowdown<\/a> in the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD). Based on a tip, I recently explored contract awards taking up to 20 months to get through the Purchasing Department. So, the slowdown appears to extend beyond just HCFCD.<\/p>\n

Bonfire, the County\u2019s purchasing portal,<\/a> shows the status of projects in the Purchasing Department. Among them are engineering\/design for the Kingwood Diversion Ditch and numerous feasibility studies.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not alleging incompetence, malfeasance or corruption. I\u2019m just alleging slowness and a lack of urgency. See examples below. <\/p>\n

Kingwood Diversion Ditch<\/p>\n

The Kingwood Diversion Ditch project grew out of the Kingwood Area Drainage Analysis conducted by Neel-Schaffer, Inc. in 2019. <\/a> The 600-page report, delivered a year later, recommended immediate implementation<\/a> of two projects: the Diversion Ditch and Taylor Gully.<\/p>\n

In 2024, U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw secured an earmark for final engineering<\/a> of the project through the EPA.<\/p>\n

After that, entries in Bonfire, the county\u2019s purchasing database show how long it took to secure and mobilize a vendor.<\/p>\n

04\/18\/2025 \u2013 Request for Qualifications (RFQ) released on Bonfire<\/p>\n

05\/19\/2025 \u2013 Consultant Submittals due<\/p>\n

09\/11\/2025 \u2013 Authorization to negotiate with Halff (the contractor) goes to Commissioners Court<\/p>\n

07\/30\/2026 \u2013 Notification that the contract with Halff will be on 8\/6\/2026 Commissioners Court<\/a> (See #335.)<\/p>\n

Total Time\u00a0 = 475 days (almost 16 months)<\/p>\n

I asked ChatGPT what the normal vendor procurement time for such projects should be. It replied, \u201cTexas state procurement guidance for formal service contracts estimates a minimum procurement cycle of roughly\u00a086 days, with complex procurements commonly extending to\u00a0198 days or more.\u201d <\/p>\n

Drilling down, ChatGPT also indicated the following ranges for large counties, such as Harris.<\/p>\n

Excellent performance:\u00a02\u20133 months<\/p>\n

Normal performance:\u00a03\u20135 months<\/p>\n

Acceptable but slow:\u00a05\u20137 months<\/p>\n

ChatGPT concluded, \u201cIf a county repeatedly takes\u00a09\u201312 months simply to hire a consultant, that often indicates process inefficiencies, staffing shortages, indecision, or governance bottlenecks.\u201d<\/p>\n

I verified these time ranges and conclusions with former county leaders.<\/p>\n

Vendor Selections for Various Feasibility Studies <\/p>\n

To see if the Diversion Ditch selection process was an anomaly, I checked several other recent vendor procurements involving HCFCD projects.<\/p>\n

12\/09\/2024 \u2013 (Yes\u2026 2024!) RFQ released on Bonfire<\/p>\n

02\/03\/2025 \u2013 Consultant submittals due<\/p>\n

04\/09\/2025 \u2013 Authorization to negotiate with several vendors went to Commissioners Court. Vendors included: AECOM; Civitas; Frees-Nichols, Inc.; Gauge; Halff; HDR; Huitt-Zollars; LJA; LAN; Michael Baker; Pape-Dawson; Torres.<\/p>\n

03\/11\/2026 \u2013 Award to Gauge and Michael Baker \u2013 457 days after RFQ issued (15 months)<\/p>\n

06\/04\/2026 \u2013 Award to Michael Baker, Halff and Torres 542 days after RFQ issued (18 months)<\/p>\n

07\/22\/2026 \u2013 Award to Pape-Dawson and Aecom \u2013 590 days after RFQ issued (almost 20 months)<\/p>\n

07\/30\/2026 \u2013 Award to LAN, and Frees-Nichols, Inc. \u2013 605 days after RFQ (20 months)<\/p>\n

Times Represent One Phase of Many<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that these times represent single phases of projects. Other phases include: preliminary engineering and construction and maintenance.<\/p>\n

\"HCFCDTypical HCFCD project lifecycle<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the time required for the chosen vendor to actually DO THE WORK.<\/p>\n

People familiar with HCFCD and Harris County call the situation unacceptable. They point to the previous Executive Director of HCFCD; the Purchasing Department<\/a>; the Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity<\/a>; and the County Attorney as the architects of this quagmire. It\u2019s not just Purchasing.<\/p>\n

Costs of Delays Not Reported<\/p>\n

HCFCD\u2019s new Executive Director, Marcus Stuckett<\/a>, has his work cut out for him. He must not only turn around HCFCD, he must light a fire under other county departments as well.<\/p>\n

Such delays have real costs even though they are rarely reported. <\/p>\n

The hidden costs include the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding<\/a>; loss of purchasing power due to inflation<\/a>; higher tax rates to pay for future construction; people living with flood risk longer than necessary; and, lest we forget, potential future flood damage.<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/p>\n

Posted by Bob Rehak on 7\/31\/2026<\/p>\n

3258 Days since Hurricane Harvey<\/p>\n

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7\/31\/2026 \u2013 For the last few years, I\u2019ve posted about the slowdown in the Harris County Flood Control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[108400,405,138836,56,58,57,138837,138838],"class_list":["post-394614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-bonfire","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-purchasing","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-purchasing","tag-slowdown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}