The Texas Water Development Board meets Sept. 2 for a briefing on a one-time grant program that drew nearly $6.9 billion in requests for the roughly $1 billion the Legislature put in it. Nothing is up for a vote; the board’s rule is that no final action is taken at a work session.
The Water Supply and Infrastructure Grants program came out of the 2025 state budget, which handed the agency $1.038 billion in cash for drinking water projects. The money is a straight grant — no local match, no loan to repay — and it has to be committed by Aug. 31, 2027, after which the program ends. Applications closed July 30. The agency’s own intake report counts 676 on-time applications asking for $6,901,946,826, plus 10 that arrived late and are ineligible.
The shape of the money decides who can get it. Because the Legislature dropped it into the agency’s general revenue rather than routing it through the bond programs the board normally uses, a constitutional bar on state grants to private parties shuts out water supply corporations and investor-owned utilities. Wastewater, drainage and flood projects are out as well. Staff expect to bring funding recommendations to the board this fall, and the Sept. 2 briefing is the last public look before that.
Two other items on the same update are worth watching. The board will report on the flash-flood siren law the Legislature passed weeks after the July 2025 Hill Country floods, which requires the agency to map the areas that warrant outdoor warning sirens and makes the local city or county install and run them. The board approved provisional maps in March. Staff will also brief the members on the state geographic information officer’s report to the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker, a survey of Texas mapping data that state law requires once every five years and that is due by Dec. 1.
The votes come later. The board’s next regular meeting, where financial assistance is actually awarded, is set for Sept. 10 in the same building. To gauge the scale of what the board moves in an ordinary month: it committed more than $1.1 billion in loans and grants at one meeting in July.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 a.m. CT Wednesday, September 2, 2026. The notice was filed August 25 at 3:33 p.m. The next regular board meeting is September 10.
- Where
- Room 540E, Stephen F. Austin Building, 1700 N. Congress Ave., Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Water Development Board — three full-time members appointed by the governor to six-year terms. L’Oreal Stepney is chairwoman.
- Format
- Work session. Every substantive item carries the line “no final action will be taken.” Public comment is taken on any matter within the agency’s jurisdiction. The board may recess to closed session for legal or personnel advice and reconvene in the open to act.
- Live video
- Streamed and archived through Admin Monitor
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · agency work session page
Board members
- L’Oreal Stepney — chairwoman; Pflugerville; engineer and longtime state environmental regulator.
- Brady Franks — Austin; the governor’s former state budget director.
- Ashley Morgan — Georgetown; water and environmental lawyer.
Roster from the agency’s board page, cross-checked against the governor’s releases — Stepney named chairwoman January 8, 2025, Franks appointed September 25, 2025 and Morgan appointed in 2025. Two of the three members have served less than a year. Bryan McMath has been executive administrator since September 2024. Meeting contact: Kathleen Ligon, assistant executive administrator, (512) 463-8294.