Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt was cited after a four-vehicle crash on Interstate 45 in September, according to a Texas Department of Transportation crash report.
The collision happened shortly after noon in the 6500 block of the North Freeway, north of Tidwell Road. Investigators wrote that Wyatt was driving a 2005 Nissan Xterra in the far-left northbound lane when she failed to control speed and struck the back of another vehicle. The report states she then continued north and hit a third vehicle, pushing it into a fourth. A diagram in the report alleges she rear-ended two additional vehicles before coming to a stop.
Houston police cited Wyatt for failure to control speed. The report lists six people involved and that no one was injured. Officers found no indication she was intoxicated, no alcohol or drug specimen was collected, and the report does not allege impairment played a role. Amanda Byford, who was driving the first vehicle hit, said she pulled alongside Wyatt afterward to check on her, and that Wyatt asked what had happened.
During a Sept. 25 screening with the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board, she said her legal troubles do not affect her ability to do her job. “Car accidents happen every day,” Wyatt said.
The crash is Wyatt’s fourth run-in with the law since she took office in January 2023. She was arrested for DWI in December 2023, and that charge was later dismissed after she completed a pretrial diversion program, though she violated her bond conditions twice. In December 2025, she was charged with misdemeanor burglary of a motor vehicle after police said she entered a minivan in a Washington Avenue parking lot. Her attorney has said she did not intend to commit theft, and a grand jury declined to indict her in April.
In May, Wyatt was arrested in Texas City on a second DWI charge. A probable cause affidavit obtained says an officer found her asleep in a running vehicle stopped in the left lane of Highway 3 around 1:30 a.m. on May 9. That case remains pending in Galveston County.
The crash also followed a pay dispute.
In August, Wyatt asked a citizen salary grievance committee to raise her salary from $139,547 to $305,000, and the committee recommended roughly $181,411. Commissioners Court rejected that recommendation Sept. 8, leaving her pay unchanged for the coming fiscal year. Republican challenger Marc Cowart spoke against the raise at that meeting, calling it “a slap in the face to Harris County taxpayers.”
Meanwhile, county leaders are pushing to eliminate the office.
Commissioners voted 4-0 earlier this year to add abolishing it to the county’s legislative agenda and to move its payment alert system to the Office of Management and Budget. That followed staff approving two altered checks totaling nearly $53,000 that the system had flagged, though the money was recovered.
Francis Nugent, the county’s deputy director of intergovernmental and global affairs, said that Tarrant, Bexar, Collin and El Paso counties have already amended the constitution to eliminate their treasurers’ offices. Abolishing Harris County’s would need two-thirds approval in the Texas House and Senate, followed by a majority of voters both statewide and in Harris County on the November 2027 ballot.
Not everyone agrees with the approach. University of Houston political science lecturer Nancy Sims pointed out, “You don’t abolish a constitutional office because of the behavior of an individual.” The office has roughly a dozen staff members, and some officials and experts have called it obsolete because of digital banking.
Wyatt faces Cowart in the Nov. 3 election after running unopposed in the Democrat primary.
