Lawsuit regarding alleged 'defunding of law enforcement' in Harris Co. rescinded, feuding continues

HOUSTON - A lawsuit over the alleged ‘defunding of law enforcement’ in Harris County was rescinded on Monday, according to Harris County officials. 

However, the political feuding behind what happened, and how it happened, is still ongoing. 

HOW IT ALL STARTED

All eight Harris County Precinct Constables protested what they saw as plans to "defund" police and wanted action to be taken on the issue in a letter that FOX 26 received back in April 2022. 

In what amounts to a united front, the Constables contended the County Administrator and the Democratic majority on Commissioners Court clawed back more than $4 million the agencies need to fight crime.

In the letter to County Administrator Dave Berry, the Constables say confiscating each precinct's financial reserves at the end of each year amounts to "defunding" their officers.

The letter, authored by Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen, cited Senate Bill 23, a measure passed the last legislative session, which prohibits local Texas governments from reducing the money spent on law enforcement.

RELATED: 'We cannot protect you,' Harris Co. deputies warning if not given enough manpower

At the time, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo pushed back on the "defunding" claim contending law enforcement budgets are actually increasing. 

TEXAS COMPTROLLER STEPS IN

Following the claims of possible "defunding," Texas Comptroller Glen Hegar ruled that Harris County Commissioners did, in fact, defend constables. 

Hegar sent a letter to state leaders along with Judge Lina Hidalgo and the rest of the Commissioners Court on Monday, saying the county ending its policy to "automatically rollover" funds from one fiscal year to the next fiscal year, resulted in more than $3 million in funds that were meant for local constables to be returned to the general fund.

The complaint alleged that "The Harris County 2023 fiscal year adopted budget reduced the resources available to Precinct 5 by $2,367,444 compared to the previous year's annualized budget." 

Hegar said after careful review the complaint does provide evidence of reduction of funding for a law enforcement agency when comparing the adopted budget for the current fiscal year to the adopted budget for the preceding fiscal year. 

Hegar said, "We confirmed that the annualized SFY 2022 adopted budget for Precinct 5 was $48,949,795, as compared to $46,582,350 for the fiscal year 2023 adopted budget. Undoubtedly, Harris County will once again use a convoluted approach with two different multipliers and exclude two pay periods to argue otherwise, yet the math is clear and straightforward. The funding shortfall is $2,367,444.86.

Hegar added, "As you may recall, the issue was at the center of a debate concerning the Harris County budget in the fall of 2022, when a determined coalition of citizens, elected officials and members of the law enforcement community stood firm and forced Harris County to adopt a "no-new-revenue" property tax rate for fiscal year 2023. These efforts are saving property taxpayers in Harris County nearly a quarter of a billion dollars."

"The root cause of that debate, however, remains unresolved. Judge Lina Hidalgo and the Harris County Commissioners Court are defunding the police," Hegar said.

He added that the county's proposed budget earlier this year for the next fiscal year reduced funding to the Constables Office by over $12 million. And while the recently revised planning budget increased funding to the Constables Office, there was still a loss in overall funding.

After outlining the allegations his office is investigating, Hegar wrote, "If the county proceeds with the Constable budget as proposed without obtaining voter approval, the county may not adopt an ad valorem tax rate that exceeds the county’s no-new-revenue tax rate."

Hegar urged HCCC to restore funding for the constables that was lost due to the end of "rollover" budgeting and then called for a reversal of the proposed budget for the next fiscal year or "it must allow its residents to voice their opinion through an election held for the purpose of approving these actions."

Hegar and his office received the complaints, which were filed by Harris County Constable Mark Herman, representing Precinct 4, and Constable Ted Heap, in July 2022, from Gov. Greg Abbott's Office.

HARRIS COUNTY RESPONDS TO COMPTROLLER STATEMENT

Following Hegar's announcement and determination that he believed Harris County Commissioners did ‘defund’ law enforcement, Harris County officials quickly responded and stated that "Comptroller Hegar needs to go back to accounting class."

In a statement, Hidalgo said, "Comptroller Hegar and his allies seem to be struggling with basic accounting. Per Harris County's 26 pay period accounting, funding for the Precinct 5 Constable's Office increased by almost two million dollars (from $46.6M to $48.5M) between the two budgets in question. I look forward to working with County Attorney Menefee on fighting this in court. In the meantime, Comptroller Hegar needs to go back to accounting class."

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said on Twitter, 

"We’ve seen this show before—Comptroller Hegar misconstruing the law and playing political games to make headlines. His math was wrong then, and it’s wrong now."

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, in a statement, condemned Hegar's statement saying, 

"The state of Texas’ political propaganda machine is at it again—distorting Harris County’s record on law enforcement for their own political gain even if it costs Harris County residents the safety and services they expect and deserve. While the obstructionists in Austin play political games, Harris County leaders are working every day to make communities safer. We’ve rolled up our sleeves to create nationally recognized programs like our gun buyback program that has pulled thousands of guns off the street, the Harris County Holistic Assistance Response Team, and our violence interruption program that complement traditional law enforcement and free up resources for officers to focus on serious, violent crime.  While some lawmakers in Austin think they can manipulate folks in Harris County, people here on the ground know that we are turning the tide on a national crime wave with robust investments in public safety."

FAST FORWARD TO APRIL 3, 2023

After all the feuding about the possible ‘defunding’ of Harris County law enforcement, Hegar released a statement on Monday saying, "Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced today his agency has rescinded its determination regarding Harris County’s ongoing efforts to defund law enforcement."

"The decision comes following the review of an analysis provided by Harris County in which Harris County conceded that the Comptroller’s annualization, which showed that the county had defunded Harris County Constable District 5, was accurate. The county relied on the Comptroller’s math to argue that the defunding was conducted in the larger context of countywide budget reductions and therefore allowable under statute."

"I applaud Harris County and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo for finally admitting that they defunded law enforcement," Hegar said. "The fact that they defunded police as part of larger cuts to the county’s overall budget is in no way an indication of Judge Hidalgo’s commitment to public safety. Rather, it is a convenient excuse ironically only available to her thanks to the courageous efforts of Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey and former Commissioner Jack Cagle who stood firm against Judge Hidalgo’s efforts to put her political career above the safety of Harris County residents. Their actions saved county taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and brought the county budget in line with the cuts already planned for county constables."

The Comptroller’s office will continue to analyze Harris County budget maneuvering if the agency receives any future complaints against the county relating to efforts by Judge Hidalgo and others to defund police.

"We are just scratching the surface now of the extreme measures Judge Hidalgo has taken in her efforts to undermine the rule of law in Harris County," Hegar added. "Removing rollover budgets, refusing to allow law enforcement agencies to hire patrol officers and other staff despite budgeting for those positions, claiming that planting trees and striping bike lanes is law enforcement – these are just some of the tactics Judge Hidalgo has used to hide the plain truth. She doesn’t support police, and she doesn’t value the safety of Harris County families, businesses and communities. That is why I am working with lawmakers to provide the people of Texas with real transparency on this issue."

The move coincided with an announcement by state Sen. Joan Huffman and state Rep. Tom Oliverson that they will seek authority for Hegar to initiate an audit of the budgets of local governments during his investigation into complaints of defunding the police.

"I fought hard and have worked with Comptroller Hegar to ensure communities around this state feel secure knowing their local governments must support the men and women who keep our families safe," said Huffman, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. "Lawmakers thought we made our intentions clear, but some Harris County officials have shown that they are willing to use budget tricks and legal maneuvering to defund the levers of justice and allow criminals to remain on our streets. It has become clear we need greater transparency."

The move to clarify and strengthen existing law would give the Comptroller the authority to request that the State Auditor’s Office conduct an economy and efficiency audit. State law currently allows for audits of local governments that receive state money, and this clarification would give authority to the Comptroller to seek greater visibility into local budgets in order to more effectively investigate complaints alleging efforts to defund police.

Oliverson said he would work to add clarifying language to existing law as the Texas Legislature considers a number of bills on issues surrounding local efforts to restrict funds for law enforcement.

"Certain Democrats on the Commissioners Court have gone to extreme measures to silence critics to maintain their grip on Harris County politics, including walking out rather than listening to the concerns of law enforcement personnel who had come to make their voices heard at an open commission meeting," Oliverson said. "Efforts to clarify the statute, while not specific to Harris County, are a direct response to their efforts to use accounting tricks to try to prevent the public from gaining real visibility into county efforts to cut funding and also limit the way law enforcement agencies can use the money that has supposedly been appropriated to keep residents safe."

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt added his support for the effort.

"There is no transparency in the way Harris County spends money," Bettencourt said. "Just a few weeks ago, county commissioners disappeared into executive session with no explanation, only to emerge having approved a $650,000 expenditure to pay for the legal fees of ‘three unnamed county staffers.’ Lina Hidalgo is using county tax dollars to make these unprecedented payments! Now she’s trying to use leftist Austin courts to paper over her efforts to defund law enforcement. I applaud Comptroller Hegar, Sen. Huffman and Rep. Oliverson for keeping up this fight."

"This isn’t just about how much money these agencies receive," Hegar said. "Fully funding the police is also about making sure they have full access to those funds and the flexibility to use that money to keep communities safe and keep criminals off the streets. I’m all for planting more trees but telling cops that they must use their budget to purchase pin oaks instead of patrol cars is defunding police."

HIDALGO RESPONDS TO RESCINDING OF LAWSUIT

Later in the day, Harris County Judge Hidalgo released her own statement about what happened:

"Thank you to Comptroller Hegar for withdrawing the lawsuit against Harris County after recognizing it was meritless. It’s not our job to explain the law or math to the Chief Financial Officer of the State of Texas, but that is what he had to do to stop state officials from bullying our communities. As a final reminder, Harris County has increased the budgets for law enforcement every year since I took office. This is true even though, sadly, we were not able to give planned raises to the tune of $100 million to our hard-working Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies, Constables’ Deputies, Assistant District Attorneys, or Detention Officers because two allies of Hegar boycotted our budget vote. Comptroller Hegar, like some other far-right officials, believe it’s good for their base to be anti-Harris County, but that doesn’t make their attacks less false or less offensive."

Chief Financial Officer Hegar’s press statement regarding his abandoning the lawsuit contains many mistruths. Most glaringly, as we’ve explained in the past, he is making mathematical and accounting errors when he falsely claims Harris County reduced its law enforcement budget. 

• Comptroller Hegar comes to his incorrect conclusion by dividing Harris County’s 2022 Short Fiscal Year (SFY) budget by 7 months and multiplying that number by 12 months to get the "annualized budget."
• Instead, per basic accounting protocols, he should have divided the SFY budget by 16 pay periods and multiplied it by 26 pay periods to obtain the annualized budget.
• Per Harris County’s 26 pay period accounting, funding for the Precinct 5 Constable’s office increased by almost two million dollars – from $46.6M to $48.5M – between the two budgets in question. 

As our attorneys argued in court, even if we were to take his incorrect math at face value, we still would not have run afoul of the law, since the portion of the budget going to law enforcement also increased—so the Comptroller had to get both the math and the law wrong to think he had a chance in this lawsuit.