Harris Co. to file lawsuit against Texas Comptroller following 'defunding the police' claims
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - The Harris County Commissioners Court approved filing a lawsuit against Texas Comptroller Glen Hegar following his investigation claiming that commissioners ‘defunded the police.’
According to a statement from Adrian Garcia, Commissioner for Precinct 2, the lawsuit was filed to reverse Hegar's "illegal and factually incorrect findings that Harris County's all-time highest budget allocations for law enforcement constituted a decrease in funding."
As FOX 26 has reported, just last week, Hegar announced that Harris County Commissioners did defund the police.
The complaint alleged that, "The Harris County 2023 fiscal year adopted budget reduced the resources available to Precinct 5 by $2,367,444 compared to the previous year's annualized budget."
Hegar said after careful review the complaint does provide evidence of reduction of funding for a law enforcement agency when comparing the adopted budget for the current fiscal year to the adopted budget for the preceding fiscal year.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Constables claim Harris County defunded more than $4 million from their agencies
The complaint alleged that the Harris County fiscal year 2023 budget reduces the overall funding for Precinct 5 when compared to the Harris County short fiscal year (SFY) 2022 budget, once annualized on a month-to-month basis.
Hegar said, "We confirmed that the annualized SFY 2022 adopted budget for Precinct 5 was $48,949,795, as compared to $46,582,350 for the fiscal year 2023 adopted budget. Undoubtedly, Harris County will once again use a convoluted approach with two different multipliers and exclude two pay periods to argue otherwise, yet the math is clear and straightforward. The funding shortfall is $2,367,444.86.
Following the announcement last week, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said, "Comptroller Hegar needs to go back to accounting class."
In the statement released on Thursday, Garcia said, "Once again, the State of Texas plays political games that put people in danger. Last year's no-new revenue rate only hurt local law enforcement by eliminating planned raises for deputies. Now, the Comptroller wants to use bad math to "prove" a false point? It's shameful that the chief financial officer of the state would attempt to cook the books for a silly stunt. We will fight this ridiculous ruling."
Garcia added, "This lack of understanding of basic arithmetic should make every Texan feel concerned. We are tire of Harris County being a target for their nonsense, and we will not stand for their continued overreach."
Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said in a statement, ""Once again, Comptroller Hegar has abused his authority. His math is wrong. His application of state law is wrong. There’s no explanation for it—he’s just flat wrong. "If Hegar’s goal was to make headlines while insulting the basic intelligence of Harris County residents, I guess he achieved that. But we don’t plan to let him abuse his power. We’ll see him in court."