MACON, Ga. — Last year, Bibb County commissioners like Valerie Wynn asked for an OLOST to pass in the Georgia Assembly.
"We could have an OLOST and use 100 percent of the money to roll back property taxes," said Wynn.
This year commissioners voted to ask the General Assembly to accept the OLOST again.
Commissioners voted 5-2 with Wynn and Shepherd voting no, Jones and Watkins absent, and Schlesinger, Lucas, Allen, and Tillman voting yes.
An OLOST, or an 'other local options sales tax' is just a penny sales tax on any goods or services sold here in Bibb County.
The differences between an OLOST and a property tax increase is that an OLOST would tax anyone spending money here in Bibb County like renters, visitors and college students.
That would affect anyone spending money in Bibb, whereas a property tax would put that burden solely on people who own property.
At Tuesday's commission meeting, commissioner Al Tillman said Representative James Beverly purposely never filed that bill.
But, it was filed.
House Bill 579 was sponsored by Macon representative Miriam Paris and Beverly supported it.
To pass onto a committee, the bill needed a third signature from one of the three other members of Bibb's legislative delegation -- representatives Danny Mathis, Dale Washburn or Robert Dickey.
"We will not -- as the way it looks -- have the opportunity for voters to vote on the OLOST," said Tillman.
Dickey says the bill is effectively dead without those signatures.
"I can promise every citizen listening to this [that] we will be right back here next year with them trying to get into our pockets," said Mike Odom.
A year ago, citizens like Odom warned if the commission didn't pass another kind of sales tax or cut county spending, Bibb commissioners would face more problems come budget time.
County officials say the special penny sales tax would bring in about $26-28 million in revenue.