Vol. III · No. 142Thursday, May 7, 2026 · Austin, TX1,847,221 documents indexed

Local Insights

Civic intelligence for the 254 counties of Texas.

★ Featured Investigation

Texas spent $184 million on AI in 2025.We can’t find what most of it bought.

We pulled every county, city, and ISD AI procurement contract on file — then cross-referenced 312 GB of agendas, FOIA responses, and EMMA filings to find the deliverables. Most of them aren’t there.

184
contracts
62
vendors
11
no public footprint
4
months reporting
Read the full story →By Castaneda & Yang · 18 min read
Fig. 01 · INTERACTIVE

$286M spent · $148M undocumented

AI procurement contracts · TX counties · 2025 · n=30 of 254
Harris
$22M
Dallas
$20.55M
Bexar
$19.22M
Travis
$18.01M
Tarrant
$16.9M
El Paso
$15.9M
Collin
$14.98M
Denton
$14.14M
Hidalgo
$11.89M
Fort Bend
$11.2M
Williamson
$10.58M
Montgomery
$10.03M
Galveston
$9.53M
Brazoria
$9.08M
Nueces
$8.68M
Lubbock
$6.83M
McLennan
$6.52M
Bell
$6.24M
Cameron
$6M
Webb
$5.8M
Smith
$5.62M
Brazos
$5.48M
Jefferson
$5.36M
Ellis
$3.76M
Johnson
$3.68M
Hays
$3.63M
Comal
$3.6M
Guadalupe
$3.58M
Kaufman
$3.58M
Midland
$3.59M

Harris alone: $22M — more than the next four counties combined.

totalundocumented
Installment № 142 · On view through May 2026

Currently on view

ALLMapsChartsDashboardsCatalogs
Plate №01Courts · Harris
CASES FILED, BY WEEKMisd assaultDWITheft <$2.5kDrug poss.Family viol.TrafficOtherDWI spike,springbreak wk →wk 1wk 26
catalog

harris court

Every misdemeanor filing in 2024 — disposition, judge, and what the documents actually say.

LI deskinteractive · 1/254
Plate №02Policy · USA
AI POLICIES BY STATEWAIDMTNDMNWIMINYVTNHMEORUTWYSDIAILINOHPANJCTRIMACANVCONEMOKYWVVAMDDEAZNMKSARTNNCSCDCTXOKLAMSALGAFLAKHITexas: nothing on the books.
map

ai policy

Where city and county AI ordinances sit — and where nothing is on the books.

M. Okafor12 min · national
Plate №03Jails · 5 counties
JAIL POPULATION, INDEXEDcovidHarrisDallasBexarTravisTarrantTrend reverses, 2023 →20192025
chart

jail rebound

After three years of decline, weekly bookings in five large counties have reversed.

S. Ahmed9 min · 5/254
Plate №04Courts · Travis
12,400 MISDEMEANORS, BOOKING TO OUTCOMEBookingFilingPlea/trialOutcome12,4002,250 dropped2,340 dismissed7,810 plead37% of cases never reach a verdict.
flow

12,400 cases

Mapped from booking to outcome. The dropouts are the story.

D. Yang11 min · 1/254
Plate №05Permits · Austin metro
PERMITS ISSUED, 5 COUNTIESTravisWilliamsonHaysBastropCaldwellnovmay
live

permit pulse

A live permit pulse for the five-county Austin region. Updated hourly.

LI desklive · 5/254
Plate №06Money · ISDs
ISD BOND YIELD, 60 DISTRICTS3.5%4%4.5%5%5.5%rural districtspay 80 bps more
scatter

rural bond gap

Sixty ISD bond issues. The yield gap between rural and urban districts is widening.

R. Castaneda8 min · 60/1019
Plate №07Money · Texas
COUNTY ELECTION SPEND ($M)2018$25M2020$51M2022$65M2024$91MEquipmentPersonnelOutreach
bars

$184m for ai

Four months of FOIA. 184 contracts. A surprising number of vendors that don't appear to exist.

Castaneda · Yang18 min · 184/254
Plate №08Water · Texas
NEW WATER PERMITS, TCEQ−43%vs. 201420142025
spark

−43% water

TCEQ has been quietly slowing approvals. Ten years of permits, by basin.

M. Okafor10 min · all 254
Plate №09Elections · Texas
CASES FILED, BY WEEKMisd assaultDWITheft <$2.5kDrug poss.Family viol.TrafficOtherDWI spike,springbreak wk →wk 1wk 26
catalog

your ballot

We OCR'd every sample ballot for the May 2026 election. Plain-language summaries, by county.

S. Ahmedinteractive · all 254
The trust apparatus

Every chart on this site has a paper trail.

We don’t ship data without showing where it came from, when we got it, and what we couldn’t get. Records are never paywalled.

01

Source on every figure

Each statistic carries its source — TCJS, EMMA, MSRB, the county portal — with the URL and timestamp.

Source · TCJS county jail population · retrieved 2026-04-12
02

Coverage labels, not marketing

We label what we don't have. If a dataset covers 184 of 254 counties, we say so — on the page, in the byline.

Coverage · 184/254 counties · gaps in West Texas
03

Documents you can read

Every story links to the underlying agendas, ACFRs, EMMA filings, and FOIA responses.

1.84M documents indexed · OCR’d · 312 GB of PDF
The weekly civic ledger

Tuesdays. Sources cited.

14,820 readers — journalists, residents, policy staff.