Texas Community Flood Match Act

AN ACT

relating to a capped, competitive state match for local drainage, detention, and voluntary buyouts in zip codes with repeated flooding; requiring a local-dollar share; and providing a sunset.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the Texas Community Flood Match Act.

SECTION 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

The Legislature finds that certain Texas communities have been hit by damaging floods more than once in a short span of years. Local governments in those places already raise drainage fees, issue bonds, and plan projects. The purpose of this Act is to put a limited amount of state money on the table as a match—not a mandate—so that ready local projects for drainage, detention, and voluntary buyouts can move faster. This Act does not require any city or county to apply. It does not set statewide land-use rules. It does not address the causes of weather. It addresses repeat damage on the ground.

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) "Administering agency" means the office or agency the Governor designates to run the program created by this Act.

(2) "Eligible applicant" means a county, a general-law or home-rule city, a drainage district, a water control and improvement district, or a similarly constituted local government with taxing or fee authority inside a repeat-flood zip code.

(3) "Repeat-flood zip code" means a five-digit postal zip code in which, in the ten years before an application is filed, documented flood events have caused public infrastructure damage or private property damage on at least three separate occasions. The administering agency shall publish a list of such zip codes before each application round, using emergency declarations, local after-action reports, and insurance or damage summaries submitted by local governments. The list is an administrative convenience. It is not a finding about climate, rainfall trends, or land use elsewhere in the State.

(4) "Eligible project" means a project located in a repeat-flood zip code that consists of one or more of the following: improvement or enlargement of drainage channels, storm sewers, or outfalls; construction or expansion of detention or retention basins; or voluntary purchase of repeatedly flooded residential property or small commercial property, with a recorded restriction that the land not be redeveloped for occupancy in the floodway.

(5) "Local dollars" means money raised by the applicant from its own taxes, fees, bonds, or cash reserves, or from another Texas local government. Federal grants, other state grants, and in-kind staff time do not count as local dollars for the match required by this Act.

SECTION 4. THE FUND.

(a) The Texas Community Flood Match Fund is created as a dedicated account in the state treasury.

(b) The Fund may receive only the appropriation made by this Act and interest earned on that money. No other transfer into the Fund is authorized.

(c) The total appropriation to the Fund is one hundred eighty million dollars. That figure is a hard cap for the life of the program. Unspent money at sunset returns to general revenue.

(d) In any single application round the administering agency may not award more than ninety million dollars in the aggregate.

(e) No single applicant may receive more than twelve million dollars across the life of the program. No single county, counting all applicants inside it, may receive more than thirty-five million dollars across the life of the program.

SECTION 5. MATCH RULE.

(a) The State may pay no more than one-half of the eligible cost of a project. The applicant shall pay the rest from local dollars.

(b) An applicant that puts up more than one-half in local dollars shall receive extra points in scoring. The State share shall never rise above one-half, even if other funding falls through.

(c) Nothing in this Act requires a local government to raise a tax, create a fee, or apply for money. Participation is voluntary.

SECTION 6. COMPETITIVE ROUNDS.

(a) The administering agency shall open two application rounds: the first within ninety days after this Act takes effect, the second twelve months after the first round closes.

(b) Applications shall be scored in public, on a published sheet, using only these factors:

(1) number of documented flood events and estimated dollar damage in the zip code in the last ten years;

(2) number of structures that the project will protect or remove from repeat flooding;

(3) share of project cost paid with local dollars above the one-half minimum;

(4) readiness: completed design, secured right-of-way or purchase offers, and a construction start date within eighteen months; and

(5) cost of state dollars per structure protected or removed.

(c) The scoring sheet shall not award points for statements about climate, emissions, equity frameworks, or model ordinances. An application that is otherwise complete shall not be rejected for failing to include such statements.

(d) Awards shall be announced in writing. Denied applicants shall receive a short statement of score and rank.

SECTION 7. BUYOUT CONDITIONS.

A buyout paid in part with money from the Fund must be voluntary. The seller must be offered a price not less than the pre-flood appraised value used for local taxation, or a current independent appraisal, whichever is higher. The deed shall bar future habitable construction in the floodway of the purchased parcel. Relocation assistance, if any, is a local cost and does not increase the state share.

SECTION 8. ADMINISTRATION AND REPORTING.

(a) Within thirty days after this Act takes effect, the Governor shall designate the administering agency and name a program director.

(b) Overhead charged to the Fund may not exceed three percent of money awarded.

(c) By the first day of each regular legislative session while the Fund exists, the administering agency shall send the Governor and the Legislature a one-page summary and a table showing: dollars awarded, dollars spent, projects by county and zip code, structures protected or bought out, and local dollars matched. The report shall not include policy recommendations beyond the operation of this Act.

SECTION 9. SUNSET AND REVERSION.

(a) The program created by this Act, the authority to make new awards, and the Texas Community Flood Match Fund expire twenty-four months after the effective date of this Act.

(b) Awards already made may be paid out for up to twelve additional months to finish contracted work. After that date any remaining balance in the Fund reverts to general revenue.

(c) This Act is not continuing law. Reauthorization requires a new bill.

SECTION 10. EFFECTIVE DATE.

This Act takes effect immediately upon approval from the Governor.