HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — The Texas comptroller is accusing Harris County of not properly funding constables in violation of a recently passed state law. That law bars localities from pulling funding from police and penalizes them if they do.
The state comptroller’s office is investigating and accusing Harris County of significantly limiting funds available to constables, however, county leaders say the claims are unfounded.
“This is nothing but a political stunt, just an incredible overreach of power from the state,” Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said.
The Harris County Democrat is pushing back against Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s letter that claims the county is defunding the constable’s office.
“The evidence and numbers don’t lie. We have been increasing law enforcement budgets here in Harris county we have evidence to provide that,” Garcia said.
Hegar’s letter comes amid a heated election year where statewide offices are up for grabs.
In the letter, the comptroller says they’re looking into the following three claims:
- Harris County abruptly ended a long-standing policy to "automatically roll over" unspent departmental funds from one fiscal year to the next fiscal year, resulting in a loss of more than $3 million in funds previously dedicated to the Constables Office in FY 2021-2022 being returned to the general fund.
- Harris County proposed a planning budget for FY 2022-2023 on Feb. 8, 2022, that reduced funding to the Constables Office by over $12 million, as compared to short FY 2022. While the recently published revised planning budget for FY 2022-2023 increases funding to the Constables Office, it still represents a $3 million reduction in overall funding.
- The budgeting practices of Harris County may not provide the Constables Office with full authority to expend their allocated budget to meet public safety needs.
Harris County will need voter approval before it can adopt its FY 2022-2023 budget.
“There’s absolutely no case this commissioner’s court has, quote, 'defunded law enforcement.' And that’s not opinion, that’s math,” Harris County Administrator David Berry said.
According to Harris County, the budget for constables is $222 million compared to other large counties like Dallas, Tarrant and Travis— they spend less at $12, $10 and $18 million respectively.
“This proposed budget actually includes 90 million in new investments in the sheriff and constables offices,” Berry said.
The comptroller’s investigation could prevent the county from budgeting for future years.
“If we aren’t able to adopt a budget and we aren’t able to adopt a tax rate, we’re going to have to go back to our prior budget which means no new funding for public safety,” said Berry.
Jack Cagle, a Republican Commissioner says for him it’s simple — law enforcement should be able to roll over excess unused money.
“It’s simple, did they have the money here or did they not have the money and if they don’t have the money that they had then they’ve been defunding,” he said.
Harris County the Precinct 4 and Precinct 5 constables filed the complaints with the state, according to Governor Greg Abbott.
They both denied requests for on-camera interviews.
Precinct 5 Constable Ted Heap's office released a statement saying, “he is pleased and is committed to serving the citizens of Harris County and keeping them safe."
Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said he received a call from the Comptroller’s office Tuesday morning to follow up on previous complaints launched in March. He thanked both the governor and comptroller for the investigation.
Harris County Democrats say there’s a coordinated effort to undermine the jurisdiction of local government.
Texas Democratic Party released the following statement:
“It’s sad that Abbott and Hegar will likely achieve what they set out to with this gimmick: news headlines that contain both the phrases ‘Harris County’ and ‘defunding the police,’ that they can then quickly turn and use in political ads ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. It’s even more sad that they’re targeting the budget of the state’s largest county – taxpayer dollars used for resources that millions of Texans require – in order to accomplish their political stunt."
Gov. Abbott, who is in a race against Beto O’rouke for Texas governor, issued the following statement:
"The dangerous actions taken by Judge Lina Hidalgo and Harris County represent a brazen disregard for the safety and security of the Texans they are sworn to protect," said Governor Abbott. "The loss of millions of dollars in funding will endanger public safety across the county at a time when Texas law enforcement is working harder than ever to keep criminals and dangerous drugs out of our communities."