What's up with Houston-area budgets, spending, contracts, and taxes? By José Luis Martínez.
My goal is to help you understand where Houston-area local governments get their money and how they spend it.
I’m José and I’m a former reporter at the Houston Landing, a nonprofit newsroom which shutdown earlier this year. Before that, I analyzed data and wrote about my findings for a nonprofit newsroom in Connecticut and as an intern for the Wall Street Journal and the Texas Tribune. I got my start five years ago in 2020 when I freelanced articles about wage-theft in Houston.
And since then, I’ve loved every second of it. It’s why I’m building this site — to continue reporting on what I was just getting started on at the Houston Landing: Local taxpayer dollars.
I don’t blame you if you’re overwhelmed, confused or simply just don’t care about this stuff. If anything, we weren’t even taught about this in school.
The reality is, though, that the tax dollars you spend on your house and through store purchases go to local government, where elected officials get to use it to hire people, buy materials, fix roads, file lawsuits, hire consultants, and do hundreds of other things.
I’m excited to begin this journey. When I got laid off, I didn’t want to move out of the city for two reasons: I’d miss my parents dearly and I truly am still itching to know more about Houston-area governments. It’s why I joined the Houston Landing in the first place, but I’m not going to let the shutdown stop me from continuing to write about this.
It’s why I’m taking this risk. To fully commit to writing about Houston money. I hope you’ll join me along this experiment.
Saludos,
José