Okay.
Chris Hollins
Controller Chris Hollins said he won’t certify Mayor John Whitmire’s 2026 budget until the court makes a decision on the city’s payment agreement with the plaintiffs in a years-long streets and drainage lawsuit, Hollins told the Houston Chronicle following a budget trends report Tuesday.
Whitmire earlier this month presented a $7 billion budget with no added fees for residents and no tax increases. The city’s budget deficit of around $106 million will be eradicated by dipping into the city’s savings account.
The budget includes a payment plan for a denied appeal in a lawsuit that requires Houston to stick to city law and put more money toward street and drainage projects.
The agreement would charge a percentage of the 11.8 cents per $100 of evaluation required by the city law incrementally over the next two years. The city would then start charging the full 11.8 cents starting in 2028 to fully supply the drainage fund.
As a result, the city would see $490 million in its drainage fund in 2026, $525 million in 2027, $540 million in 2028 and $585 million in 2029, Whitmire’s team explained.
But even though the court ruled the city had to comply with the ordinance, the city has not yet received word from a judge on whether Houston’s agreement with the plaintiffs is acceptable.
“We’ve shared with [the Whitmire administration] that they’ll need to go to the court to get that blessing before we can move forward,” Hollins said.
City Attorney Arturo Michel wrote in a statement that the agreement is currently before the court and that all parties involved considered it routine to have it presented without a hearing. Michel said the plaintiffs in the case would contact the court to say the agreement is the preferred payment mechanism.
Michel disagreed with the controller’s position that a court order would be necessary to approve the budget.
“The parties have a binding agreement that has received all city and plaintiff approvals,” Michel wrote.
Whitmire’s Deputy Chief of Staff Steven David added that even if the case were to be reassigned to a different judge in the case, city leadership – including the controller and city council – would still be bound by the agreement it collectively approved.
See here, here, and here for some background. I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a fellow Dem precinct chair about this post-ruling deal that allowed the city to defer some of the drainage payments. How is it that a defendant that has already lost the lawsuit can engage in what is essentially a settlement deal? My thinking was that if this arrangement is acceptable to the plaintiffs then it satisfies the judgment, and since the enforcement of a judgment is basically the plaintiff going back to the judge to complain about it, then as long as they’re happy it all works. But as we know, I Am Not A Lawyer, and it seems normal and reasonable to check with the judge first to make sure this arrangement is in fact kosher. It probably will be (again, IANAL) but it can’t hurt to wait until the judge officially says so. And so here we are.