With the 2019 legislative session winding down Tuesday, an effort to increase Macon-Bibb County sales taxes and another proposal to restructure a community authority failed to make the cut.
After failing to get approval for an Operational Local Option Sales Tax, or OLOST, last year, Bibb County officials – led by Mayor Robert Reichert – urged state lawmakers to push the proposal through the Assembly this year.
An OLOST would add another one-cent sales tax on purchases made in Bibb County. The county's existing sales tax rate totals eight cents per dollar.
The proposal bogged down in the 2018 legislative session because lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to split up the proceeds from that additional penny tax.
A one-cent sales tax would raise about $27,000,000 more a year. The original OLOST proposal called for Bibb to roll back property taxes equal to the amount raised by the OLOST.
Some lawmakers, however, wanted a fifty-fifty split in the OLOST. They'd use half of the OLOST money to reduce property taxes and the other half as revenue for the Macon Bibb County government’s operational budget.
When the 2019 legislative session began in January, some local officials hoped state lawmakers could agree on an OLOST split and move it through the Assembly. But they couldn't, and a proposal wasn’t introduced at all.
The Assembly can't consider another Bibb OLOST until next year.
Even if state lawmakers agree to move an OLOST forward, Macon Bibb voters would get to decide whether to add that additional penny sales tax on their purchases.
Meanwhile, the proposal to change membership requirements for members of the Macon-Bibb County Enhancement Authority failed to get enough support to move forward. Four of the five-member Bibb County legislative delegation in the House of Representatives signed the proposal, labeled HB-638.
Those four were Republicans Robert Dickey, Danny Mathis and Dale Washburn and Democrat James Beverly.
HB-638 required the signature of all members of the local delegation. Democrat Miriam Paris didn’t sign the bill. It died without consideration.
Among other things, HB-638 said current enhancement authority members would continue serving through June 30 this year. On July 1, the bill said the authority would be governed by a board of trustees that would consist of a chairman and four members. The current chairman would serve until June 30, 2020. The chairman would appoint two board members who would have to be approved by the Macon-Bibb County legislative delegation.
A third member would be appointed by the Macon-Bibb County government. The fourth member would be one of the Macon Bibb commissioners. Authority members would serve two-year terms.
Since the bill wasn’t introduced in the House, the Georgia Senate didn’t get an opportunity to consider it.
