The proposed property tax reform bills recently filed in the state Legislature would have no effect on the cities of Bastrop and Smithville, but that hasn't stopped each town's mayor from pushing against the measure they claim would diminish local control.

House Bill 2 and Senate Bill 2 would require a local election each time a city or county wants to collect an additional 2.5 percent of property tax revenue over its previous year's total, even if that rise is caused by increasing home valuations rather than increased tax rates. Currently that threshold is at 8 percent.

As written, the bills would apply only to jurisdictions that annually collect more than $15 million in property taxes and sales taxes combined. Any city collecting annual revenues under that figure — such as Bastrop with its roughly $10 million combined collection, and Smithville with roughly $2 million — would be exempt. But the bill would also allow exempt communities to opt-in to a lower rollback rate through an election.

Not wanting to take that advantage for granted, Bastrop Mayor Connie Schroeder is already reading the tea leaves.

"There are already conversations about how this will impact the first 150 cities (with revenues under the $15 million threshold), and then they'll make the number lower," she said last week during the city's latest council meeting. "We can't ignore it just because we're exempt."

"My concern is that, at the end of the day, it's about local control — it's our home and it's our decision," she said.

Smithville Mayor Scott Saunders Jr. said he was 100 percent in lockstep with Bastrop's position on the issue.

"It's just one of those things where you give an inch, they take a mile. It's just going to keep moving," he said Monday.

Of the property taxes Bastrop residents paid last year, 56 percent went toward the Bastrop school district, while the rest was split between the city and Bastrop County. Last year, the city of Bastrop received over $5 million in property tax revenue and about $4.8 million in sales tax revenue.

The Bastrop school district gets about 36 percent of its funding from the state, and the rest is made up by local taxpayers.

The average value of a single-family home in Bastrop in 2018 was $203,000, according to the Bastrop Central Appraisal District, which means that about $1,145 of an average homeowner's annual tax bill flows into the city's coffers. Under the new bill — if it applied to smaller cities like Bastrop and Smithville — the city could only raise taxes by about $29 a year before triggering a mandatory election, which would cost the city about $5,000 to $10,000 to hold.

"When you hear about this bill and you think it's going to be a major tax relief, I wouldn't start booking a trip to the Riviera," Schroeder said. "Because the difference in the city's taxes would be $0."

Schroeder, Saunders and other members of the Bastrop City Council join a growing chorus of opposition among city and county leaders across the state. Since Gov. Gregg Abbott, Speaker Dennis Bonnen and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced their property tax relief strategy earlier this year, numerous counties have passed resolutions asking for a different solution.

In a column published in the Austin American-Statesman earlier this month, Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt took the state legislature to task for "leaning on the locals" to finance the lions share of school budgets. And last month, the Bastrop County Commissioners Court joined 35 other counties when it passed a resolution calling for an amendment to the state constitution that would prohibit the state from mandating programs without also giving them the funds necessary to carry them out.

In a letter to Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who is sponsoring the Senate bill, Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape proposed that Bettencourt amend his bill to allow local governments to tie their property tax cap to a three-year rolling average of the State and Local Price Index, a formula that would address inflation and would anticipate "the economic uncertainties of the future."

"It seems to me that (Bettencourt's) exemption of entities with budgets less that $15 million (at first) and then calling for an opt-in election for them, is a political ploy to gain support for his bill. If there is a problem with over taxation, it is not limited to larger entities. Why leave out 10 million Texans from this 'protection' of his tax bill?" Pape said Tuesday.

"Locking down the cap at 2.5 percent will hog-tie local governments in raising funds to provide the services our citizens deserve. My office gets a lot of complaints about potholes in roads, dogs running loose, and excessive noise in neighborhoods. We do not get a lot of complaints about county taxes," Pape said.