Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is one signature away from defusing a $1.2 billion tax bomb he himself activated last year when he rammed through legislation aimed at punishing Walt Disney Co. to criticize the “Don’t say gay” law a month earlier.
A new bill passed by the Florida Legislature on February 10 that changed the name of the taxing district that governs the expansive Central Florida parcel of Disney and gave the Republican governor the power to name the board while generally leaving the financial structure of the district untouched.
More important to local property owners — and DeSantis, who is likely to run for president in 2024 — is repealing legislation passed last year that would have transferred $1.2 billion in Reedy Creek Improvement District bond debt to Orange and Osceola counties if implemented on schedule in the month of June. 1. 700,000 or home and business owners will see their property tax bill increase by thousands of dollars each through 2038, when the Disney bonds will finally be repaid.
“Disney’s roosters … while potentially dangerous to the taxpayers of Central Florida, are not illegal, so they should maintain the Disney domain-specific governance structure, claim victory even as they retreat quickly,” Mac said. Stipanovich, once served as chief of staff for former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez.
The new law, meanwhile, targets only Reedy Creek but not other tax districts created for the benefit of certain landowners, such as for the development of the Village near Ocala or in Daytona Beach for the NASCAR track there. It also allows Disney to continue to operate on a shoestring basis as it allows for huge tax assessments to pay for infrastructure improvements at the theme parks. Both elements refute DeSantis’ claims about the law.
“The show again isn’t about the Reedy Creek government. It’s about punishing a company that’s talking,” said Nikki Fried, a Democrat who served as the state’s agriculture commissioner before running unsuccessfully for governor last year.
DeSantis’ staff did not respond to HuffPost’s questions, including those asking when he plans to sign the new bill.
But in public statements, he and his staff portrayed the bill as a political victory.
“There’s a new sheriff in town,” he boasted at a Feb. 8 press conference.
Disney did not respond to HuffPost’s inquiries. In an earlier statement, the company said it was working on a new framework.
Caring for Rats
The episode comes days after the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature passed the Parental Rights in Education Act on March 8, 2022, which prohibits teachers in early grades from discussing sexuality or gender. Critics called the bill a “Don’t say gay” bill and said it would prevent teachers in same-sex households from, for example, mentioning couples.
Disney remained silent on the bill as it moved through the legislature, but CEO Bob Chapek later sent a letter to all Disney employees on March 11 criticizing it and saying it would suspend political donations in Florida, which is heavily favored by Republicans. years, reflecting the party’s dominance in the country.
That public defiance angered DeSantis, and he responded the following month, during a special session in which he was asked to provide congressional maps for the upcoming elections. On April 19, allies of DeSantis introduced a bill that eliminated all special tax districts that were created before the approval of the 1968 Constitution and have not been reauthorized. The bill affects five obscure districts in various counties plus Reedy Creek, which was established in 1967 when the state encouraged Disney to build a huge new theme park south of Orlando.
The act gave Disney the power to tax over the 25,000 acres it purchased in order to build roads, power plants, and water and sewage systems, using money collected from itself through property taxes within the district’s boundaries. Disney was also authorized, which it never did, to build a nuclear power plant and an airport. The Reedy Creek board will be elected by the landowners in the district, with each acre having one vote.
The bill that eliminated Reedy Creek was signed just two days later, and DeSantis signed it a day after that, on April 22, 2022.
However, a separate state law states that if an independent district is dissolved, the outstanding bond debt will be taken over by the counties within the district’s borders – Orange and Osceola, in the case of Disney and Reedy Creek.
Punish the ‘Woke’ Rat
It’s unclear whether DeSantis and his aides, during last spring’s verbal battle with Disney, understood the consequences of eliminating Reedy Creek in area property taxes. “I can’t imagine they understand,” said Kevin Cate, a Democratic political consultant. “They shoot for Fox News first and target later.”
In the days after the repeal bill became law, DeSantis has promised additional legislative action to iron out the details — indicating that, at that point, at least, he knows that failure to do more would be a political disaster.
The action came earlier this month in another special session, on new legislation dealing only with Reedy Creek, changing its name to the Central Florida Tourism Supervisory District and amending the board so that the governor appoints its members rather than the landowners within its borders.
The name is misleading. Most don’t deal with Central Florida tourism, which includes other theme parks, such as Universal Studios and Sea World, as well as garish lanes like International Drive. It only deals with 24,969 hectares on the border of Reedy Creek, much of which was purchased to give Disney resorts a significant buffer from the surrounding area and which is now a water recharge zone for the aquifer.
Although the new law removes Disney’s ability to build nuclear power plants and airports, some of the actual tax breaks that Disney enjoys because of competing theme parks in the area appear to remain untouched by the new law, which continues to tax the renamed county. . – exempt status. When the Disney tax district builds a parking garage for Disney guests, for example, it doesn’t have to collect sales tax, but its competitors do.
Disney properties will continue to pay some of the highest property taxes in Florida. The company pays all county and school taxes due on the land and then pays additional “factories” dedicated to building and maintaining roads and utilities on the property.
“The irony is that Disney wants and pays higher taxes than if there were no special tax district, if it could determine how to spend it to maintain high maintenance and safety standards,” Stipanovich said. “He had and had a special deal, but not the financial advantage, which was the centerpiece of DeSantis’ attack. It was a farce from the beginning.”