Well, it's a little more complicated than that. The municipality (the county, in the region of the country I'm in) sets the budget for the year, then each prop

Well, it's a little more complicated than that. The municipality (the county, in the region of the country I'm in) sets the budget for the year, then each property's owner pays taxes in the amount of the fraction of the property's assessed value divided by the total assessed value of all property in the county times the annual budget. E.g. if the county's annual budget is $1,000, and there are three properties in the county assessed at $200,000, $300,000, and $500,000, then the property taxes for each property are $200, $300, and $500, respectively. Our county happens to have pretty conscientious governance: all properties in the county are re-assessed every two years and budget increases are in-line with inflation, so property taxes have increased very gradually since we moved in ~17 years ago. If the county doesn't have the workforce to assess all properties in the county as frequently and there are large increases in assessed values then property taxes can (temporarily) be significantly increased, which might be what is happening around Austin.