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1 day ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
In late 2013, applause echoed through Houston’s City Council chamber following the unanimous approval of a wage-theft ordinance that would enable the city to investigate, track and penalize city contractors that failed to pay employees overtime, minimum wage or any other compensation owed to them. Nearly 12 years later, the ordinance has delivered mixed results at best.
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6 days ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
The City of Galena Park boasts on its website that “it has had efficient government administration through the years.”In reality, it’s unlikely the town’s 10,000-plus residents know how their tax dollars are being spent. That’s because the city has not posted any documents or details of its current $15.8 million budget on its website.
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1 week ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
Receipts is a weekly spotlight on how the city of Houston and Harris County spend your tax money, with a focus on the everyday things most residents may take for granted. Got something you want us to look at? Email José at [email protected]. Anytime the city of Houston is hit with a lawsuit, taxpayers end up footing the bill. And the city gets hit with a lot of lawsuits. In fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the city’s litigation costs topped more than $7 million each year.
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2 weeks ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
Receipts is a weekly spotlight on how the city of Houston and Harris County spend your tax money, with a focus on the everyday things most residents may take for granted. Got something you want us to look at? Email José at [email protected]. A few years ago, the City of Houston began testing the use of an Amazon Prime account to buy stuff. Today, city employees are hooked. From 2018 through mid-February of this year, the city spent $1.8 million on nearly 45,000 items.
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3 weeks ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
Receipts is a weekly spotlight on how the city of Houston and Harris County spend your tax money, with a focus on the everyday things most residents may take for granted. Got something you want us to look at? Email José at [email protected]. “It takes money to make money,” the saying goes. And when it comes to local government, it takes money to spend money.
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4 weeks ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez |Hanna Holthaus
Houston employees used city-issued credit cards to buy more than $41 million worth of goods in the past two years, but failed to document what was purchased in more than half of those transactions. In tens of thousands of cases, employees failed to include any description of what they purchased. In others, employees simply used “product” or even “generic product” to describe what they bought.
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1 month ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
Receipts is a weekly spotlight on how the city of Houston and Harris County spend your tax money, with a focus on the everyday things most residents may take for granted. Got something you want us to look at? Email José at [email protected]. You’re zooming down the Sam Houston Tollway, a camera light flashes overhead as you pass through the toll plaza and you’re charged $1.75. You not only paid to use the road, you just paid to take cars across the Houston Ship Channel on the Lynchburg Ferry.
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1 month ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
Taking care of Houston’s parks and trails is nothing even remotely like a weekend in the burbs, where lawn crews and homeowners mow and trim for a few hours and call it a day. Upkeep of the city’s 382 parks and more than 190 miles of trails is a seven-day-a-week job performed by roughly 240 workers. The annual cost: $25.5 million.
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1 month ago | 
houstonlanding.org | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
The Houston Fire Department graduated 31 academy cadets in February, swelling its ranks to more than 4,000 firefighters. Their first task? Picking up more than two dozen pieces of heavy – and costly – protective clothing and gear. How costly? About $21,756. Per firefighter. The clothing and equipment has to be able to withstand the most extreme temperatures while remaining durable for repeated use. That’s why the bunker coat, for example, costs $1,400.
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1 month ago | 
route-fifty.com | José Luis Martínez |Jose Martinez |José Martinez |Jose Martínez
This article was originally published by Houston Landing. When Liz Rodwell was tracking down information on the Brazoria County Appraisal District’s website last fall, what was supposed to be a short task turned into a maze. She was trying to find the current property tax rate and gather documentation to contest her home’s valuation, but it ended up taking days and many phone calls.
