The three members of the Texas Water Development Board meet Oct. 1 to decide whether to raise Kerr County’s flood-warning grant to $6.85 million — more than five times what the county holds now, and about 14 percent of the $50 million the Legislature set aside for 30 counties. Anyone who wants to address the board by video must register by noon Sept. 30.
The money comes from a law passed in the second special session of 2025, after the July flood on the Guadalupe River. It directs the board to identify flash-flood-prone places that warrant outdoor warning sirens and requires the county or city to install, maintain and run them. A companion appropriation put $50 million into the program, and the governor’s office handed the grant-making to the water board that November. Eligibility is limited to the 30 counties in the governor’s July 4, 2025 disaster declaration.
Kerr County signed a $1 million agreement in January and had it raised to $1.25 million in August. On Sept. 14 the agency’s executive administrator approved an amended county plan putting the full cost of compliance at roughly $6.85 million, covering sirens, water-level and rain gages, flood modeling and a flood prediction system, according to the staff memo for the meeting. The Dispatch found no agency accounting of how much of the $50 million has been committed so far, so what the increase leaves for the other 29 counties is not on the record.
Nineteen other items follow. The board takes up its annual spending plans for the two federal-state loan funds that finance most Texas water and sewer construction — roughly $1.07 billion available in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, by the staff’s own figures — along with new lending rates, about $1.9 million for aerial mapping of two Middle Colorado River watersheds, and seven local requests for loans or debt forgiveness, the largest a $14.5 million package for the City of Hutchins. A petition asking the board to rewrite how regional planners calculate water supply opens the meeting.
Watch whether members attach any condition to the Kerr increase, and whether they say what a grant this size implies for the counties still waiting. The board’s next scheduled meeting is Nov. 12.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 a.m. CT Thursday, October 1, 2026. Notice TRD 2026005690 was filed September 23 at 12:48 p.m.
- Where
- Stephen F. Austin Building, Room 170, 1700 Congress Ave., Austin, and by webinar.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Water Development Board — three full-time members the governor appoints to six-year terms, subject to Senate confirmation. Chairwoman L’Oreal Stepney. No seat is vacant.
- Format
- Regular board meeting, 22 items. Public comment is item 21. The board may adjourn into closed session on litigation, personnel or investment matters.
- Live video
- By Microsoft Teams webinar; the link is printed on the notice. Speakers by video must register by noon Sept. 30; in-person speakers by 8:30 a.m. Oct. 1. Telephone-only participation is not allowed. The Dispatch found no statement on the agency’s site that meetings are archived on video.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · agency agenda (PDF)
Board members
- L’Oreal Stepney, P.E. — chairwoman; Pflugerville; former TCEQ deputy executive director.
- W. Brady Franks — Austin; former state budget director in the governor’s office.
- Ashley Morgan — Georgetown; attorney; term ends Feb. 1, 2027.
Roster from the board’s own members page, checked September 24, 2026, and cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases. Franks was appointed in September 2025 to a term ending Feb. 1, 2031; Morgan in October 2025 to a term ending Feb. 1, 2027. The agency lists Stepney’s term as ending Feb. 1, 2029, but the only appointment release the Dispatch found for her, dated December 2022, describes an unexpired term ending Feb. 1, 2023, and no reappointment release was found on the governor’s site; the 2029 date is printed here on the agency’s authority alone. Bryan McMath is executive administrator. Staff contact: Kathleen Ligon, assistant executive administrator, (512) 463-8294.