Abbott gives $50M check to Houston
Mayor receives same amount he sought from state earlier in week.
Gov. Greg Abbott delivered a check for $50 million in state money to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Friday to pay for debris removal and insurance costs not covered by the federal government, canceling city plans for an emergency property tax increase to meet the expenses.
“We’re wearing the same jersey, we’re on the same team,” Abbott said after delivering just what Turner had asked for earlier in the week — a sum the governor had initially balked at providing right away.
The presentation of the check — drawn from the state disaster relief fund — at a City Hall press conference ended a few days of skirmishing between the governor and the mayor of the state’s largest city.
“We’ve been working together
over the years,” Turner said.
“Decades,” Abbott, a former attorney general, corrected him.
“Decades,” said Turner, who before becoming mayor spent a long time as a wily legislator in the Texas House. “And Texans do what they do, OK, so I appreciate what has taken place today.”
Abbott had previously given Houston a check for $91.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Harris County got a separate $44.5 million FEMA check, to pay for debris removal. Abbott also negotiated an arrangement with FEMA to pay 90 percent of the costs it covers instead of the customary 75 percent.
But Turner, in a letter earlier in the week to Abbott, said that still left Houston on the hook for 10 percent of what he estimated Friday would be about $260 million in debris removal costs.
In the letter, Turner said the city was also responsible for a deductible on its exhausted insurance coverage and the premium for a new plan to see the city through hurricane season, and that the city had run through its savings. Turner said that absent a new infusion of state money, he was going to have to raise property taxes to cover that $50 million.
While Turner had called on Abbott to take money from the state’s $10 billion rainy day fund to cover the costs, calling a special session of the Legislature if necessary, Abbott had said he and other state officials agreed that there was no need at this time to call a special session.
While the rainy day fund will eventually be tapped, Abbott said, that could wait until the next legislative session in 2019, when the picture of what exactly is needed will be clearer. In the meantime, other appropriated funds could be used and later replenished by a supplemental appropriation using money from the reserve fund.
“We have budget flexibility to make sure all our needs will be addressed,” Abbott said.
But, he said, “we keep our options open. If needs arise, we can always call a special session.”
At a Tuesday briefing on Harvey in Austin, Abbott had been dismissive of Turner’s request for additional money, saying the mayor “has all the money that he needs,” and that, “in times like these, it’s important to have fiscal responsibility as opposed to financial panic.”
But, Abbott said Friday, upon considering Turner’s request “and after looking at all the options, this looked like the best solution at this point in time, and that’s what we’ll do with cities and counties across the entire region. It’s not just the city of Houston that has needs. It’s not just Harris County. There are counties and cities across the entire area that have needs.”
The governor said the big money still must come from Washington.
“The rainy day fund is a tiny fraction of what the rebuilding costs will be, and there’s no way we have any way to rebuild without the profound effort by Congress that they demonstrated in the aftermath of Katrina and Sandy,” Abbott said.
“If we were just going to rebuild to the way we were, it is going to take a monumental effort by Congress,” Abbott said. “If we’re going to rebuild in a way that will protect both the Texas economy as well as the national economy, we need to be able to rebuild in a way that will prevent flooding and catastrophic damages like this in the future, and that will require Congress living up to what Sen. ( John) Cornyn and Sen. (Ted) Cruz and the Texas congressional delegation have been working on.”
The initial disaster relief outlay from Washington was $15.3 billion.
Abbott said the disruption caused by Harvey cost Americans $100 million a day in higher gas prices, and more than $1 billion overall.
“So if the Texas economy is hit, the national economy is hit,” he said, “and so this is more than a Houston issue or a Texas issue. This is a national issue and is very deserving of a national response.”