Commissioners adopt new formula to allocate Harris County mobility funds for FY26

Harris County Commissioners Court voted to allocate fiscal year 2026 mobility funds to precincts using a formula that weights three factors equally: the percentage of mobility funds a precinct received over the last 20 years, the condition of the roads in each precinct, and county road miles in each precinct.

Commissioner Ramsey moved the measure and Commissioner Garcia seconded. Commissioner Ramsey described the formula as "a fair balanced, formula based on real data," saying it replaces a prior approach the court "inherited from previous courts." He added that he will travel to Austin to testify about the local solution. The motion passed unanimously.

Court members said the formula was intended to remove politics from distribution decisions and to address concerns raised by the state legislature. One commissioner said the new methodology should render pending state bills unnecessary because the county had addressed the primary issue locally.

The court took item 6 (toll road) into executive session along with this discussion but later determined no action was necessary on the toll-road item because item 2 addressed the relevant topics.

The court directed staff to implement the FY26 allocation under the newly adopted formula; no specific dollar amounts were discussed on the record during this meeting.