HOUSTON -- The first step in an aggressive effort to provide better drainage for Houston neighborhoods has taken a one-week detour.

A plan to create a special fund in the city’s budget to act as like a detention pond for dedicated tax dollars was scheduled for a vote today, but two members of the City Council asked to hold off on a vote for a week.

Council members Anne Clutterbuck and Pam Holm said they support the measure, but requested the extra time to gather additional comments on the measure from the community.

Even so, it appears the full council will vote to support the measure next week. The plan will funnel roughly $211 million into a dedicated fund over the next five years. That money will be used for infrastructure projects targeting neighborhoods that flood during heavy rainfall.

M.J. Khan, who chairs the flooding and drainage committee and developed this plan, said it cannot fix all of the city’s flooding problems.

“If you talk to the professionals in the engineering community, they will tell you that this is just a small portion of what is really needed,” he said. “The real numbers are upwards of two billion, or three billion. The important thing with this fund is that we’re not taking money from the general revenue fund – we are allocating money that we do collect and putting it in this dedicated fund before it goes somewhere else.”

Council member Mike Sullivan, who opposed the creation of a drainage enterprise fee during his campaign, says he supports this plan because it does not impose a fee or tax on residents.

“I’ve always said I think we can find funding to get the projects done without a tax,” he said while explaining his support for this measure. “Here we are.”

Houston Mayor Bill White explained that a dedicated budget pool for drainage improvement projects will allow future administrations to tap money for infrastructure projects without suffering the political consequences of cutting other areas of the city budget to pay for them.

“Historically the city was spending between $20 and $30 million a year on drainage, most of which had to do with removing obstructions to the flow,” he said. “In 2004, $15 million was dedicated to that in funding, although $25-30 million was budgeted. So we ran out of money.”

He said this plan is the first step toward allowing the city to spend more than $40 million a year on similar projects between now and 2018. That would give engineers the flexibility to act more aggressively to prevent flooding – rather than just clear and maintain drainage systems that already exist, he said.