Harris County Commissioners Court approved the county’s annual $1.6 billion operating budget with nary a word on Tuesday after spending about an hour and a half discussing $10 million in engineering contracts for a segment of the Grand Parkway.

The court held off on approving the Harris County Hospital District’s $1 billion budget at Commissioner Steve Radack’s request as he awaited answers to questions about whether the district is being properly reimbursed for treating residents of other counties, illegal immigrants and rape victims.

Radack, a frequent hospital district critic, has raised those questions several times in the past. But hospital district chief executive David Lopez said he could not immediately provide details about those reimbursements. He told the court two weeks ago the district was owed $30 million for treating residents of other counties and acknowledged Tuesday that more could be done to speed up those collections.

The county’s budget is just $30 million larger than last year’s, as anticipated revenue flattened due to falling interest rates for county investments and expected declines in the commercial property tax base after years of growth. The court postponed approval of any new positions for county departments until its mid-year review in September.

The court approved the budget after a lengthy discussion of the Grand Parkway, a 185-mile proposed outer loop around Houston that has been under consideration for more than two decades.

The court voted two weeks ago to build and maintain a tolled segment of the expressway connecting the Katy Freeway and U.S. 290. On Tuesday, the court approved contracts with 13 engineering companies to design different parts of the roadway and voted to obtain a comprehensive study of the traffic and revenue the segment would generate.

The Sierra Club sued the Federal Highway Administration and the Texas Department of Transportation on Monday, saying they failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of the proposed 15-mile segment on the Katy Prairie. Brandt Mannchen, the air quality chairman for the group’s Texas chapter, said the existing environmental studies do not take into account the fact that 700 acres of the Katy Prairie will be paved over for the road .

“Citizens want places like the Katy Prairie protected, so why don’t we do it?â€