ATLANTA – State lawmakers are looking at expanding a special sales tax privilege to allow more school districts to use it to pay for bussing students, rising health care costs or other day-to-day expenses.

Currently, only Colquitt County and nine other rural school districts have been approved for what is known as an education local option sales tax. The tax is different from the sales tax districts ask voters to approve for new high school buildings and other capital projects.

“It’s been working for those districts,” Bleckley County Schools Superintendent Steve Smith told lawmakers, speaking on behalf of several middle Georgia districts that want access to the additional penny sales tax.

Bleckley County’s neighbor, Houston County, is one of the 10 districts with the tax. That district has been able to pay its starting teachers more than Bleckley County does, which puts his district at a disadvantage, Smith said.

“Being rural and very limited retail-based and very limited industry, it’s a real challenge for us to compete with a Houston County,” he said.

Smith is pushing for a measure first proposed last year that may be gaining traction for the new session, which starts Monday. Proponents argue that the proposal could take pressure off property taxes in some communities.

Rep. Bubber Epps, R-Dry Branch, is sponsoring the constitutional amendment, which would let school districts go to voters for a penny sales tax to fund maintenance and operational expenses for up to five years. Districts would have to present a specific list of projects, just as they do now with capital projects.

“We want to help you help yourselves,” Epps said during a hearing called Thursday on the measure before the House Education Committee.

But some school officials say the proposal would not actually help them due to their meager sales tax base.

“This change will widen the gap between low-wealth districts and other systems,” said Superintendent Allen McCannon with Madison County School District, which is in rural northeast Georgia. “Low-wealth districts are already struggling to get the best and brightest teachers.”

McCannon noted the focus on the struggles of rural Georgia as lawmakers return to Atlanta next week, where they are expected to consider several proposals meant to spur economic growth in the state’s more sparsely populated communities.

“This is something that could have an impact on rural Georgia – the farming communities that help feed the world that I love so much in our county – in a negative way,” McCannon said.

Another legislator said that the problems the proposal seeks to address might be crying out for a more comprehensive solution.

“I think we’re dancing around the QBE formula,” said Sen. Fran Millar, R-Atlanta, referring to the state’s 32-year-old education funding formula.

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.