On Wednesday, the Transportation Committee of the Texas Senate held a hearing on a bill by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, which would implement some reforms to the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) and force it to share some of its excess revenue with the City of Houston to compensate it for providing police and emergency services. Roberto Treviño, the HCTRA Executive Director, testified at the hearing in opposition to the bill, basically contending that the agency had no money to spare. Of course, that fell a little flat, considering the County Commissioners have transferred $1.1 billion out of HCTRA in just the last three years.

But the truly remarkable moment in the hearing came when Bettencourt asked Treviño how much cash HCTRA had on hand as of the end of the last fiscal year, September 30, 2024. Treviño said he did not have that number with him. After Bettencourt became incredulous that the Executive Director would not know how much cash the agency had; an aide to Treviño brought him a document, which he identified as the Annual Certified Financial Report (ACFR). After examining the document, Treviño told Bettencourt HCTRA had $697 million in cash on hand at the end of the year.

This is the document Treviño was looking at:

As you can plainly see, the ACFR reported that the cash and cash equivalents were just over $1.2 billion and that the $697,000 was in short-term investments. HCTRA’s total liquidity at the end of the year was actually over $2 billion.

When Bettencourt caught Treviño red-handed, he attempted to cover up his misrepresentation by claiming that bond covenants restricted some portion of the $2 billion.

However, as you can see in the excerpt on the balance sheet above, restricted cash is separately itemized below the current assets line.  In other words, the $2 billion absolutely did not include any restricted cash.

So, essentially, everything Treviño told the Committee during his testimony was untrue.

I have been the CEO of several companies and organizations at various times in my career. I can promise that I always knew how much cash we had on hand. I find it inconceivable that Treviño did not know HCTRA’s cash position. If he truly did not know, he should be fired immediately for incompetence.

However, it seems more likely that his handlers sent him to the hearing with instructions to make the case that HCTRA did not have any money to share with the City, regardless of how much dissembling that would require. You may recall that Treviño received a nearly 40% pay raise in January of this year, bringing his salary to $485,000, so there was plenty of incentive to follow instructions.

Laying aside the merits of the particular bill that is under consideration, it is clear that we need more transparency and better checks and balances on the torrents of cash that the toll roads are now generating. The Houston region desperately needs funding to improve its rapidly deteriorating infrastructure. We cannot afford to spend any of the funding available in anything other than the most effective manner possible. After listening to Treviño's testimony at the hearing, I do not see how anyone could have any confidence that is currently the case.