The Law of Unintended Consequences has shown its presences once again: What does the bill do?
The bill declares that any special district created before November 1968 will be dissolved on June 1, 2023. The text is just over a page in length and offers few details.
What that means for Disney and for Florida taxpayers is not entirely clear. Republican sponsors were unable to give detailed answers to questions about financial and legal implications of the legislation during floor discussions Thursday. They suggested that the legislature could work through logistics of the dissolution over the next year.
The dissolution of the special district would mean that Orange and Osceola counties take on the assets and liabilities of Reedy Creek. That could lead to higher taxes for those residents to pay off Reedy Creek’s debts and take over the care of roads, policing, fire protection, waste management and more.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/21/us/reedy-creek-walt-disney-fl…
OTFoolish
Walt,
From your quotation: They suggested that the legislature could work through logistics of the dissolution over the next year.
Yup. Which means that nobody has answers right now.
From your quotation: The dissolution of the special district would mean that Orange and Osceola counties take on the assets and liabilities of Reedy Creek. That could lead to higher taxes for those residents to pay off Reedy Creek’s debts and take over the care of roads, policing, fire protection, waste management and more.
A lot of speculation by people who don’t have answers.
But the other side of the coin is that the Disney properties would have to start paying the county tax when this law takes effect. The additional tax base is a lot of very valuable real estate that require relatively little in the way of services, so it probably will more than offset the additional burden on the counties.
Norm.
But the other side of the coin is that the Disney properties would have to start paying the county tax when this law takes effect. The additional tax base is a lot of very valuable real estate that require relatively little in the way of services, so it probably will more than offset the additional burden on the counties.
It’s worth noting that Disney already pays County property taxes. Being in an independent special district does not relieve you of the obligation to pay property taxes to any general jurisdiction units of government that your property lies within.
So, for example, the below link takes you to the Orange County property appraiser’s website for the Magic Kingdom parcel within WDW (each of the major parks and hotels have separate tax folio numbers). You’ll see that Disney pays about $2 million in property taxes to the County, another $3 million to the school board, about a million to the City of Bay Lake (another Disney-controlled ‘captive’ city that provides some services that the RCID does not), on top of the $5.8 million they paid to RCID.
https://ocpaweb.ocpafl.org/advancedsearch/Parcel%20ID/272411…
If RCID disappeared entirely, it’s unlikely that Disney’s tax bill would increase materially (at least relative to any other property owner). They’re probably already paying the full amount that Orange County assesses against private property located within a municipality.
But I don’t think there’s any real likelihood that RCID disappears entirely.
Albaby