Abbott presents Turner with $50 million to help Houston post-Harvey

Sept. 29--Gov. Greg Abbott delivered a check for $50 million in state money to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner Friday to cover debris removal and insurance costs not covered by FEMA, obviating Turner's need to seek an emergency property tax hike to cover the expenses.

"We're wearing the same jersey, we're on the same team," Abbott said after delivering just what Turner had asked for from the state earlier in the week, a sum the governor had initially balked at giving right away.

The presentation of the check at a City Hall press conference ended a few days of skirmishing between the governor and the mayor of the states's largest city, a mayor with long experience as a wily legislator in the Texas House.

"We've been working together over the years," Turner said.

"Decades," Abbott, a former attorney general, corrected him.

"Decades," Turner said. "And Texans do what they do, OK, so I appreciate what has taken place today."

Abbott had previously given Houston a check for $91.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Harris County got a separate $44.5 million FEMA check, for debris removal costs. Abbott also negotiated an arrangement with FEMA to cover 90 percent of the costs it covers instead of the customary 75 percent.

But Turner, in a letter earlier in the week to Abbott, said that still left Houston on the hook for ten percent of what he estimated Friday would be about $260 million in debris removal costs. In the letter, Turner said the city was also on the hook for a deductible on its exhausted insurance coverage, and the premium for a new plan to see the city through hurricane season, and that the city had run through its savings. Turner said that absent the new infusion of state money, he was going to have to raise property taxes to cover that $50 million.

While Turner had called on Abbott to take money from the state's $10 billion rainy day fund to cover the costs, calling a special session of the Legislature if necessary, Abbott had said he and other state officials agreed that there was no need to call a special session. While the rainy day fund would eventually be tapped, Abbott said that could wait until the next legislative session in 2019. In the meantime, other appropriated monies could be used, and then replenished by a supplemental appropriation using money from the reserve fund.

But Abbott said that the rainy day funds would be but a drop in the bucket for what will be need to rebuild Houston and other communities in a sustainable way, and that Texas is still depending on Congress and the president to come through in a big way for Texas.

Joining Abbott and Turner at the press conference were Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp, who Abbott named the state's Harvey czar to guide the rebuilding effort, and several legislators.

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