A bill set for a hearing Tuesday could undermine efforts to construct a stadium for the Major League Soccer team headed to Austin.

Senate Bill 1771 would allow government entities like Travis County and the Austin school district to collect property taxes on the proposed 20,000-seat stadium, which is set to be built on city-owned land in North Austin.

Detractors of the stadium deal have focused on the city's decision to make the venue exempt from property taxes, which was a central negotiating point in wooing Precourt Sports Ventures to locate its MLS franchise, Austin FC, in the Capital City.

"They shouldn’t have that authority," said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, the author of SB 1771. "To me, that was what caught my eye on this (deal). That accountability has to stay with each taxing jurisdiction. ... It is what I consider the bad public policy of one making a deal for others that don’t have any input."

SB 1771 is set to come before the Senate's Property Tax Committee, which Bettencourt chairs, on Tuesday. It would allow taxing entities to opt-in to collecting taxes on the stadium. Precourt could cancel the stadium deal if the stadium site is categorized as taxable.

"We are certainly supportive (of Bettencourt's bill)," said Chris Lippincott, spokesman for Fair Play Austin, the political action committee that has shepherded a citizen petition that could force an election on the stadium deal. "It would provide taxing entities like our school district the choice of whether to opt in to a corporate giveaway. If the Austin ISD thinks the best thing for students is for Anthony Precourt to not pay taxes to the school district, they can do that."

Fair Play Austin is backed financially by Bobby Epstein, the owner of Austin Bold FC, a United Soccer League team that held its first home game at Circuit of the Americas on March 30.

Precourt Sports Ventures declined a request for comment about Bettencourt's bill.

To Josh Babetski, president of the Austin FC supporters group Austin Anthem, the bill is the latest in a string of unsuccessful attacks by a small group determined to stop MLS from coming to Austin.

"It is unfortunate when there are bigger things at the city and the state (level) and they are wasting their time on something like this," Babetski told the American-Statesman. "I get why they are motivated, but it just seems like not the best use of our lawmakers time and energy."

The Austin City Council's approval on Aug. 15 of a $225 million stadium at McKalla Place raised eyebrows at the Travis County Commissioners Court. In August, commissioners authorized the Travis County attorney to challenge the city's deal.

Commissioner Gerald Daugherty told the Statesman he plans to testify in favor of Bettencourt's bill on Tuesday.

"I don't have a problem with the damn stadium," Daugherty said. "If the city of Austin wants to do what they have done, that is their prerogative. We just think that we, as a taxing jurisdiction, got drug along and we didn't even get asked."

Under the city's deal, PSV will finance the stadium. The city will remain the owner of the McKalla Place tract and the stadium, which it will lease back to Precourt for a total of $8.25 million in rent over a 20-year lease term.

Daugherty said he would like the county and other taxing entities to be able to collect tax revenue on the value of the stadium, but not the land itself. That's how commissioners structured the county's 2017 deal to rent out a 77,215-square-foot property at 308 Guadalupe St. to a private developer.