May 11, 2022

Kevin Master
Public Safety Office
Office of the Texas Governor
P.O. 12428
Austin, TX. 78711-2428

Dear Mr. Masters,

As the Constable of Harris County Precinct 4, I am respectfully submitting the following complaint to
the Public Safety Office of the Office of the Texas Governor involving a violation of Chapter 120 Local
Government Code (Senate Bill 23).

Section 120.006 of the Local Government Code states any resident of a county that has reduced or
reallocated funding and resources for certain law enforcement agencies without voter approval may file
a complaint with the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division.

With more than 550 sworn deputies and dozens of civilian employees serving nearly 1.1 Million residents
and covering over 500 square miles, the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office is one of the largest
such operations in the United States. I am the independently elected leader of that office. I have worked
at Precinct 4 since 1986, was appointed Constable in 2015, elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020.

Harris County reduced the resources available to my department during preparations for the Fiscal Year
(FY) 2022 budget. As a result, $199,387.00 in funding readily available to my office was capriciously
taken away. This was done as crime rates and murders increased in Harris County and as officers saw
heightened risk in the face of greater demands for service.

The result was a reduction in my FY 2021 budget from $62,594,574.82 to $62,395,187.52 since
these funds were originally available to my office to use as needed but later removed prior to my office
being able to allocate them where needed. It is my opinion the way Harris County encumbers money
prevents agencies from knowing their actual available funding throughout the fiscal year, thus leaving
unspent or residual budget money for that FY. The current process has the County Auditors encumbering
funds throughout the fiscal year based on “projected data” not actual data. This is an issue, as it takes away
an Agency’s ability to spend any available funds because of improper projected expenditures.

Since these improper projected expenditures are not met, my agency as well as other law enforcement
agencies within Harris County are unable to properly allocate our entire budget to the needs of our agency.
This procedure guarantees Harris County Law Enforcement agencies, including my agency are left with
several thousand dollars each fiscal year we do not have access to, therefore ensuring these monies are
removed from my budget and returned to the General Fund of Harris County at the end of the fiscal year.
This issue was raised with Harris County (see Exhibit 1) and acknowledged by Harris County’s Office of
Management and Budget’s Executive Director Mr. David Ramos. (See Exhibit 2) Within Mr. Ramos’ letter,
dated April 27, 2022, he advises his office is aware of this issue and they are working on solutions to rectify
this in the future. Within Mr. Ramos’ letter he provides an updated amount of budget funds that were not
spent in the last fiscal year. The mere fact these numbers continue to change, nearly two months after the
close of the budget cycle, only highlight the issues with these improper projected expenditures.

Although my office is committed to working with Harris County to rectify this issue and ensure we have
access to our full budget in the upcoming fiscal years, the fact still remains $199,387.00 was defunded from
my FY 2021 budget due these flawed practices.

Since FY 2013, county law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, along with other county
departments, were allowed to “roll” unused funds into their budgets for the new fiscal year. The program
encouraged economic vigilance by elected officials and appointed department heads. It discouraged
haphazard, unwise, or unnecessary expenditures in the rush to spend any leftover funds at the end of each
fiscal year.

The rollover policy had the benefit of giving law enforcement leaders the financial flexibility to handle
unexpected expenditures involving officer training and equipment. The funds could also be used to
support crime fighting initiatives.

The rollover policy was suddenly ended March 9, 2021 and Harris County has advised they will not be
reinstating this policy. Due to the majority of these “rollover” funds being encumbered, by Harris County,
throughout the fiscal year and then Harris County removing these funds from my account at the end of
the fiscal year, prior to my agency being able to spend them, has led to Harris County’s violation of Local
Government Code Chapter 120. As you know, the intent of the enabling legislation for this law was to
protect law enforcement agencies from “defunding” and after speaking with the author of SB 23 we
believe the practice of encumbering certain monies ensures they will not be spent but will be returned to
the County’s General fund is in fact “defunding” my agency and a clear violation of Local Government
Code Chapter 120.

The elimination of the policy was also handled in an inequitable fashion in that Commissioners Court
members were allowed to retain rollover funds within each of their offices. This violation of the law,
which resulted in the loss of these previously available funds, has been accompanied by murky action on
the ability to increase the pay of frontline officers and keep pace with rising inflation – another way some
Harris County policymakers have chosen to hinder law enforcement and our ability to retain quality staff.

Please feel free to contact me if you need more information and or can report any progress on the handling
of this complaint.

Sincerely,

Mark Herman, Constable

Harris County Precinct 4
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 EXHIBIT 1

HARRIS COUNTY CONSTABLE’S OFFICE

April 19, 2022

Mr. Dave Berry

Harris County Administrator 1001
Preston Street, 5th Floor Houston,
Texas 77002

RE: Residual Budget Money from 2021 Budget Cycle

Dear Mr. Berry,

On behalf of the Eight Harris County Constables, we are writing to make you aware that most of us
had residual money in our budget at the end of the Fiscal Year (“FY”) for 2021. Additionally, the
Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) and the current Commissioners Court created, adopted
and approved our Budgets as well. We believe the process of encumbering budget money at the
beginning of the year as well as additional encumbering of budget money throughout the year has led
to the current problem. The range of funds returned to the county “General Fund” differs among each
agency respectively. The residual money for FY 2021; was provided to each agency by the OMB and
then reconciled by each agency’s budget personnel. Each Constable’s Office year-end balance of
residual budget money is listed below for your convenience:

Constable Office’s Residual Budget Money for FY 2021

Constable Pct. 1 $587,000.00
Constable Pct. 2 $56,394.10
Constable Pct. 3 $0.00
Constable Pct. 4 $617,506.66
Constable Pct. 5 $1,264,522.09
Constable Pct. 6 $499,409.00
Constable Pct. 7 $793,260.64
Constable Pct. 8 $441,900.00

It is our position, the figures represented above are balances owed to each respective agency. Moreover,
it is our collective opinion; the way the County encumbers money prevents agencies from knowing
their actual available funding throughout the fiscal year, thus leaving unspent or residual budget money
for that FY. The current process has the County Auditors encumbering funds throughout the fiscal year
based on “projected data” not actual data. This is an issue, as it takes away an Agency’s ability to spend

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any available funds because of improper projected expenditures. In many instances, agencies were
contacted by Auditor’s Office personnel during the FY who stated that according to their projections,
and based on their encumbrances, the agency would be over budget by year-end. Once the fiscal year
ends, like in FY 2021, the Auditors release the encumbrances and agencies are left to predict what
residual money they have at the end the FY. This budget approach ensures residual budget money rolls
back into the General Fund. Due to Senate Bill 23, it is our ask to receive the full adopted/appropriated
money that was approved during the FY 2021 budget process. One proposed solution would be to return
to the rollover policy, for law enforcement agencies, as an easy fix to the problem. We also recognize
you may have a better solution.

Therefore, we would like to schedule a time to meet and discuss this urgent matter with you within the
next five business days so that we may work with you to resolve the current issue and to develop a long-
term solution.

We look forward to hearing from you and working with you to resolve this matter.

Respectfully,

Alan Rosen Jerry Garcia

Alan Rosen, Constable Jerry Garcia, Constable
Harris County Precinct One Harris County Precinct Two

Sherman Eagleton Mark Herman

Sherman Eagleton, Constable Mark Herman, Constable
Harris County Precinct Three Harris County Precinct Four

Ted Heap Silvia Trevino

Ted Heap, Constable Silvia Trevino, Constable
Harris County Precinct Five Harris County Precinct Six

May Walker Phil Sandlin

May Walker, Constable Phil Sandlin, Constable
Harris County Precinct Seven Harris County Precinct Eight

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 Exhibit 2

April 27, 2022

Constable Alan Rosen, Precinct 1

Constable Jerry Garcia, Precinct 2
Constable Sherman Eagleton, Precinct 3
Constable Mark Herman, Precinct 4
Constable Ted Heap, Precinct 5 Constable
Silvia Trevino, Precinct 6 Constable May
Walker, Precinct 7 and Constable Phil
Sandlin, Precinct 8

Dear Constables,
We received the April 19, 2022, letter describing your difficulty spending your entire budget
appropriation and your related proposal to reinstate the County’s rollover policy for law enforcement
agencies as a potential solution.
The Office of Management and Budget and Office of County Administration remain committed, and
are considering alternatives, to help your departments fund critical needs. For example, rollover funds
were commonly used in the past to purchase and refresh non-capital law enforcement equipment (e.g.,
vests, tasers, computers, MDTs, etc.). As part of the Current Level of Service effort we will be kicking
off as part of the FY23 budget process, we will be giving departments the opportunity to flag unfunded
items within their budgets and hope to create countywide allocations for items such as IT, fleet, and
facilities to fund in the FY23 Budget. We aim to develop a sustainable plan and funding mechanism to
ensure your staff have the equipment needed to safely perform their vital job function for citizens across
Harris County.
That said, OMB and OCA will not recommend returning to a blanket rollover policy. In May 2020, the
final year of the unrestricted rollover, $131.5M was retained by departments. Our position is that
allocating such a large sum for unspecified purposes increases the financial risk to the county and
reduces flexibility to allocate funds for critical needs.
Regarding your points about the Auditor’s encumbrance process, we are aware of at least three
accounting and encumbrance situations that may impact you, and want to partner with your agencies and
other pertinent county departments to find solutions. Please let us know if there are additional situations,
we can help address. Three we’re aware of are:

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1. Toll Road overtime expenses are reimbursed after-the-fact via expense journal entry. Toll road
overtime expenses can tie-up Constable budgets until the expense is moved to the Toll Road by the Auditor’s
Office, often with a significant lag. We propose to work with your office, the Toll Road Authority and the
Auditor to examine the feasibility of having officers charge overtime directly to a Toll Road account so it
never hits the Constable budgets.
2. The final fleet billings come in after year-end so last the last month or two of fleet expenses are not
known until after the fiscal year is closed. Inaccurate encumbrance projections by the Auditor can cause
the department to tie-up more budget than needed or can also cause the department to end the year with a
negative balance after year-end entries are made. A potential solution to explore is to charge fleet costs to
Constable budgets based on when payments are processed by US so August & September fleet charges would
be paid from the following year’s budget instead of being billed to your department after the year has ended.
Again, we would like to discuss this and other possibilities with your offices, the Auditor and Universal
Services.

3. Purchase Order encumbrances tie-up the department’s budget. Departments can affect this to an extent
by more proactively managing POs but long delivery lead times and slow invoices are largely outside the
department’s control. For equipment purchases in particular, we want to work with you as described above
to develop a sustainable funding plan to alleviate purchasing and invoice timing issues and ensure officers
have the up-to-date equipment they need.

Finally, we want to provide updated year-end budget figures that include the final fleet service charges
posted on April 12. Below are the amounts of unspent 2021-22 budget for each of your precincts as of
April 21, 2022. Including the year-end adjustments to-date, the total unspent budget for the eight
precincts is $3.1M vs. the $4.3M referenced in your letter.

Constables’
Dept. Letter As of 4/21/2022
301 $ 587,000 $ 234,835
302 56,394 64,888
303 0 210,974
304 617,507 199,387
305 1,264,522 1,378,357
306 499,409 462,452
307 793,261 544,390
308 441,900 -24,598
Total $4,259,992 $3,070,685

Your OMB portfolio team looks forward to working with you on these issues. In the meantime, if there
are critical one-time purchases that you do not believe can fit your budgets, we are ready to engage and
work toward funding them expeditiously. We will schedule a meeting to discuss the issues in this letter
as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Daniel Ramos

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Executive Director