Texas Senator Proposes Tapping Rainy Day Fund For Flood Control

Austin American-Statesman (TX)

Jan. 25--In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and devastating flooding in Central Texas last year, a key Republican lawmaker has proposed tapping the state rainy day fund for $1.2 billion to pay for flood-control projects.

The proposal, by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, is the latest suggestion by Republicans to dip into the emergency savings account for big- and small-ticket items. GOP lawmakers in recent years had been reluctant to touch the fund, which now tops $12 billion.

Already, lawmakers have proposed using rainy day money to subsidize retired teachers health insurance, boost state employees' pensions, improve state hospital facilities, subsidize medicaid and reimburse state agencies and school districts for Hurricane Harvey-related spending, among other things.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, has said he expects lawmakers to tap the fund for one-time expenses, but it's not clear how much he and other fiscal hawks would be comfortable spending from it.

Hoping to replicate the sort of long-term planning process that undergirds water supply public policy, Perry, who chairs the Senate Water and Rural Affairs Committee, filed several measures this week to create the first statewide flood control plan and a way to pay for flood mitigation projects.

The statewide flood plan, to be overseen by the Texas Water Development Board and in place by 2024, would evaluate the condition of current flood control infrastructure and rank new and ongoing projects or strategies, among other things.

Another Perry measure calls for voters to authorize the transfer of $1.2 billion to the state flood plan fund: $592 million to pay for improvements at high-hazard dams around the state and $608 million to finance other flood-control infrastructure projects.

The measure does not specify which projects would be earmarked for money, but a 2017 American-Statesman investigation found several hundred substandard dams upstream of populated areas in Texas that violate state law intended to guard against dam breaching, or failure, in catastrophic floods.

Those include six city-owned dams in Austin, as well as others in Central Texas, a region that has experienced some of the heaviest rainfall events in the world.

Ballooning fund

The rainy day fund was set up in the late 1980s as a management tool to smooth out a volatile source of revenue -- oil- and gas-related tax collections.

The Texas comptroller estimates the fund will have a balance of $15.4 billion by August 2021.

"There's a reasonable question that the rainy day fund is a drag on the economy," said Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. "You're sucking $2 to $3 billion a year out of the private sector so we can grow a balance in a fund we don't use."

A string of road, pipe and other infrastructure problems, some exposed by natural disasters, coupled with the hefty fund balance, has led to a "greater acceptance for using the rainy day fund for nonrecurring expenses," Craymer said.

"Water doesn't care much about political boundaries," Perry told the Statesman. "We have a patchwork approach to flood planning that often involves diverting water to another community." Instead, he said communities should be coordinating their efforts across river basins.

Using the rainy day fund "sets the tone that we're serious," Perry said. "If this is the priority we believe it is, when we talk about matters of deferred maintenance and public safety, I don't think we should be a constrained by a general revenue spending cap. Property and life is at risk. This sets some urgency in place."

'Flash flood alley'

Leaving aside the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey, flooding is common in parts of Texas -- especially the Austin area.

Perry's office reports that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recorded 1,100 flood events in the state since 2000 accounting for 1,175 direct and indirect deaths, more than $800 million in damage and $458 million in harm to crops.

Central Texas' propensity for flooding can be traced to a topographical rise that runs roughly parallel to Interstate 35 from Fort Worth to San Antonio and then turns west, following U.S. 90 toward Del Rio. Undramatic from the ground, the Balcones fault zone uplift is nevertheless sufficiently high to trap or slow rainstorms that brew over the Gulf of Mexico and churn their way north.

As rain falls from the stalled clouds and collects on the ground, the lift and tilt of the Hill Country sends it rushing toward Austin. With only a thin layer of soil to absorb the water, the result can be sudden torrents that quickly overwhelm local streams.

The phenomenon has given the area the label "flash flood alley." Texas has more sudden floods than any place in the country, and Austin sees its share. Disastrous floods have washed over the city with regularity, most recently in 1981, 1991, 1998, 2001, 2013 and 2015.

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