Every budget season produces the same argument, and every year it gets a little harder to have honestly. So let us try.
Harris County has proposed a 2027 budget that spends about $327 million more than this year. That is roughly 12 percent. Taxable property values across the county grew eight tenths of one percent. The gap between those two numbers is not a rounding error. It is a decision, and it lands on a tax bill.
The county has a defense, and it is a real one. Close to 88 percent of the increase, by the county’s own accounting, goes to keeping services at their current level. Law enforcement pay parity with the City of Houston. Health care and benefits for county employees. Facility maintenance, fleet, utilities. Nobody sensible wants deputies underpaid relative to HPD, and nobody wants the county to defer building maintenance until a roof fails.
Here is the problem with that defense. It is not a plan. It is a description.
If it costs 12 percent more each year to deliver the same services against a tax base that grows under 1 percent, the county is not facing a one time squeeze. It is facing a structure that produces this same meeting every August, with a bigger number each time. At some point somebody has to say which services the county will stop providing, or which costs it will bring down, or that it intends to keep raising the rate indefinitely and voters should plan accordingly. The current budget says none of those three things.
Then there is the calendar. The budget was presented at a special meeting on August 17. The vote is September 8. Early voting starts in October. Three weeks earlier, at a lightly attended August 6 meeting, the county approved $305,000 salaries for a slate of elected officials. None of that is illegal, and none of it is unusual. It is also not an accident that the expensive decisions get made in the quietest month of the year.
We are not going to pretend the answer is simple. A county of 4.8 million people with a jail under scrutiny, a flood control district with real obligations, and a hospital system carrying uncompensated care cannot cut its way to comfort. But a county asking for 12 percent owes residents more than a list of costs it did not choose. It owes them a number it is aiming for next year, and the year after.
Commissioners Court meets September 8 at 1001 Preston Street. Public comment is the only part of this process that does not require a lawyer. Use it.
This is the view of the editorial desk of Concerned Citizens for Harris County. Our news coverage is reported and attributed separately. If you think we have something wrong, write us and we will correct it.
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- Editorial: the 12 percent question - August 28, 2026
- Case file: 37 felony theft charges, 13 prior convictions, and a $75,000 bond - August 28, 2026
- Council attaches a housing check to the Fourth Ward zone’s $15.2 million budget - August 28, 2026
