{"id":395530,"date":"2026-08-02T13:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T13:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395530\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T13:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T13:18:15","slug":"hcfcd-still-has-steep-hill-to-climb-on-cdbg-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395530\/","title":{"rendered":"HCFCD Still Has Steep Hill to Climb on CDBG Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

8\/1\/26 \u2013 A transmittal from Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) to Commissioners Court for their 8\/6\/26 meeting<\/a> shows the updated status of all Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Projects<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Since Dr. Tina Petersen\u2019s last update on 5\/1\/2026<\/a>, the new schedule shows that, of 28 projects in the Disaster Relief (DR) and Mitigation (MIT) groups, expected completion dates have:<\/p>\n

Slipped on 10<\/p>\n

Remained the same on 8<\/p>\n

Sped up on 10.<\/p>\n

However, schedule delays exceeded gains by a total of 862 days<\/a>. I assume that\u2019s due to more accurate reporting under HCFCD\u2019s new Executive Director Marcus Stuckett.<\/p>\n

\"WoodridgeMarcus Stuckett, new Executive Director of HCFCD, at Taylor Gully\/Woodridge Groundbreaking on 7\/20\/26<\/p>\n

Of an additional seven neighborhood drainage projects, six should finish before the end of this year. <\/p>\n

Beating the CDBG Clock<\/p>\n

Stuckett replaced Petersen<\/a> a little more than a month ago. Petersen resigned under pressure when it finally became clear that the county could lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to missed deadlines on CDBG jobs.<\/p>\n

As Petersen came under increasing pressure, she developed a plan with the Texas General Land Office (GLO). The plan applied spending from three different types of CDBG jobs against the $322 million designated for the DR group. Those have the tightest deadline \u2013 February 28, 2027. Just seven months away!<\/p>\n

The other two types of projects being applied against the DR total include Mitigation (MIT) and neighborhood drainage.<\/p>\n

By applying spending from the latter two groups against the DR total, HCFCD hopes to meet its obligation to spend $322 million by the end of February, 2027. Worst case, HCFCD will reduce its potential losses.<\/p>\n

Only $56.77 million has been spent to date in the DR and MIT groups, with $67.33 million in the neighborhood drainage group. Those total $124.1 million. That means\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026the $322 million finish line is still $197.9 million away.<\/p>\n

Calculated from HCFCD spreadsheet<\/a> submitted to Commissioners Court for 8\/6\/26 meeting.<\/p>\n

How Deep is the Hole?<\/p>\n

This transmittal shows that Stuckett still needs to get HCFCD out of a deep hole that Petersen left HCFCD in. <\/p>\n

About one third of the $322 million has been spent to date.<\/p>\n

That leave two thirds to spend within the next seven months. <\/p>\n

Seven months represents about 15 percent of the time between the announcement of the CDBG-DR award and the deadline for spending it.<\/p>\n

So, HCFCD must spend the remaining two thirds in 15 percent of the time.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a tall order. It\u2019s sad that Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia defended Stuckett\u2019s predecessor to the bitter end and delayed her exit by a year or more as the CDBG funds fell into a deeper and deeper hole.<\/p>\n

Now, it will take extraordinary effort to climb out of that hole.<\/p>\n

The spreadsheet submitted by Stuckett<\/a> for the next commissioners court meeting is extremely detailed: about 40 lines deep by 51 columns across.<\/p>\n

Such updates will hopefully let commissioners discuss any concerns they have. And help HCFCD answer their questions.<\/p>\n

In the next few months, accurate and timely updates will also show whether the current \u201crunning rate\u201d will get us to the $322 million finish line in time.<\/p>\n

Posted by Bob Rehak on 8\/1\/26<\/p>\n

3259 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":"8\/1\/26 \u2013 A transmittal from Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) to Commissioners Court for their 8\/6\/26 meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[139071,3615,82598,10896,104414,56,58,57,139072,139073,139074,13665],"class_list":["post-395530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-cdbg","tag-dr","tag-garcia","tag-glo","tag-hcfcd","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-mit","tag-neighborhood-drainage","tag-stuckett","tag-texas-general-land-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395530","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=395530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}