Fort Worth officials aim to keep local control

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and City Council members are joining other cities across the state in a fight to maintain local control, even as bills that strip cities of local control continue to be filed in the Texas Legislature.

The long list of bills city officials are advocating against Wednesday and Thursday for Tarrant County Days at the State Capitol include:

▪ Imposing revenue caps and appraisal caps that could hurt municipal finances;

▪ Bans and limitations on cities regulating the oil and gas industry;

▪ A reduction of cities’ extraterritorial jurisdiction from five miles to a half mile;

▪ A bill turning home rule cities into general law cities, which would severely limit their ability to regulate anything;

▪ A prohibition of tree preservation ordinances (Fort Worth does have such an ordinance);

▪ Banning a city’s ability to adopt local anti-discrimination ordinances not contained in the laws of the state (such as Fort Worth’s decision to include anti-discrimination laws for the lesbian, gay, bi and transgender community).

And these are just the “tip of the iceberg,” Brandon Aghamalian, president of Focused Advocacy, told the City Council in a legislative update Wednesday before the group of council members and city staff left for meetings, dinners and receptions with legislators.

Price said the trend is hypocritical for a predominantly republican legislature adamantly opposed to federal control.

“If you don’t want Washington controlling you — there are certain things assigned to the state and there are other things that fall to the city. And we need to stay with those,” Price said.

“We want to focus on the ability for cities to deliver the services that our citizens need — police, fire, water, streets — in the mode that our citizens elected us to deliver them,” Price said. “We want the state to understand that we are a partner, and local control is a big deal. And revenue caps continue to be a major issue.”

Property taxes

Cities are especially concerned about a tax-relief bill pitched by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston. Senate Bill 182 would halve the amount that local property tax revenue can grow from the previous year — from 8 percent to 4 percent. Cities that exceed that cap would need to call an election.

Bettencourt, who also authored a bill calling for more tax exemptions, said in a Feb. 11 news conference that tax relief for citizens is needed because of the record tax roll growth in Texas.

“When property taxes rise two times faster than paychecks, it is bad public policy,” he said in the press conference.

The city’s legislative team Wednesday stressed that revenue caps won’t provide the advertised relief, but would save local taxpayers only $2.75 per month on average, less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks. The savings are even less if the property owner qualifies for exemptions.

This story was originally published February 25, 2015 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Fort Worth officials aim to keep local control."