Four candidates for Harris County commissioner answered questions six days after the tax vote. None of them put a number on the bill.

Community Impact published candidate questionnaires for both contested Harris County commissioner races on September 23, six days after the same court adopted a 67.147 cent tax rate. The two incumbents quantify what they spent, down to $500 million on flooding and 80 miles of sidewalk. Neither one mentions the rate.

Why it matters

The rate Commissioners Court adopted on September 17 adds $47.34 per $100,000 of taxable value. It shows up on bills the Tax Assessor-Collector normally mails in October, a few weeks before the election.

Two of the five people who cast that vote are on the November 3 ballot. It is the largest single thing either of them did this month, and a voter reading either questionnaire would not learn it happened.

By the numbers

67.147 cents per $100 of taxable value, adopted September 17, up from 62.413 cents. That is 7.6 percent.
4.734 cents of increase, or $47.34 per $100,000 of taxable value.
3-1. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey voted no and County Judge Lina Hidalgo abstained. On a five-member court that leaves Rodney Ellis, Adrian Garcia and Lesley Briones as the three yes votes.
Precinct 2: Adrian Garcia, Democrat, incumbent, against Richard Vega, Republican.
Precinct 4: Lesley Briones, Democrat, incumbent, against Steve Radack, Republican, who held the Precinct 3 seat before Ramsey.
$500 million to prevent flooding and six million feet of drainage ditches cleared, the figures Garcia gives.
Billions in flood mitigation and 80 miles of sidewalk, the figures Briones gives.
Zero tax rates, bill amounts or named programs in any of the four candidates’ answers on taxes and the budget, as those two pages read on September 24.

What the coverage buried

Community Impact did the useful part. It ran both candidates in each race at the same length on the same page, with links to each campaign, which is more than most outlets do for a commissioner race.

The gap is one sentence of context. Neither page carries the adopted rate or the date of the vote, so a reader comparing Briones and Radack on affordability has no way to know that one of them voted for a 7.6 percent increase six days earlier.

Both incumbents answer the tax question with seniors. Briones offers “tax relief for seniors.” Garcia says he has “cut property taxes for seniors.” A senior or disabled exemption is a different instrument from the rate. It lowers taxable value for people who qualify and apply. It does not change what the court adopted for everyone else, which is the number in the mail in October.

The challengers are no more specific. Radack says he would “reduce the property tax rate by eliminating programs” and names none. Vega says taxpayers should know “where their money goes and what results it produces” and gives no figure at all.

The other side

A questionnaire is not a deposition. These are short written answers to broad prompts, campaigns write them to be quotable rather than precise, and that is true in both parties and in every race on the ballot. Challengers also have a real handicap: Radack and Vega do not have the county budget office working for them, and naming a program to cut from outside is harder than it sounds.

The incumbents have a defense too. State law now requires pay parity across classes of peace officers, and the county’s own budget book projected a shortfall it put at $181 million in July. Neither of those is invented and neither is small.

All of that is fair, and it leaves the same hole on both sides of the ballot. Garcia and Briones had the county’s own rate table in front of them on September 17. Radack and Vega have had it since it was published. Four candidates, two parties, and not one of them puts a number next to the bill.

What to watch

Whether either incumbent states the September 17 vote in their own campaign materials.
Whether Radack names a program and a dollar amount to go with “eliminating programs.”
Whether Vega puts a figure behind “fiscal responsibility.”
October, when the Tax Assessor-Collector normally mails bills and the 4.734 cents becomes concrete.
Any televised debate in either race. The Harris County Judge debate ran 10 minutes and nobody has published the tape.

Bottom line

Both questionnaires are worth reading, and both races now have positions on paper that can be held against a record later. What is missing is arithmetic.

A voter who wants to know what any of these four would do to the bill arriving in October has to leave the page to find out. The number is public and it is 4.734 cents.

Sources

Editorial