Disney’s governing district says Florida cannot get rid of it until bond debts are paid

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After Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to dissolve the 55-year-old governing structure for the Walt Disney Company’s sprawling theme parks and resorts, officials warned that doing so would turn Disney into a huge tax liability for neighbouring counties.

But the district, which Disney effectively controls, has reassured investors that the move from state Republicans and Governor Ron DeSantis can’t happen until Disney’s bond debt is paid off.

The statement – quietly posted on the website for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board – is the only public statement about the district’s dissolution thus far from Disney or Disney-related entities after the governor and his allies sought retribution for the company’s opposition to what opponents have called the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The statement, first reported by Florida’s WESH 2, quotes a statute reading that the state of Florida “pledges … it will not limit or alter the rights of the District … until all such bonds together with interest thereon … are fully met and discharged.”

Disney essentially levies taxes against itself to pay for its municipal services, from water and sanitation to emergency response, through the Reedy Creek Development District, implemented through the state legislature in 1967 and covering 39 square miles across Orange and Osceola counties.

With Disney as the primary landowner for the district, the company is largely responsible for all costs of those municipal services that otherwise would fall under the jurisdiction of county and local governments, including the taxpayers who live within them, essentially easing the burden from residents and placing it on one of the largest companies in the world.

“In light of the State of Florida’s pledge to the District’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem taxes and collecting its utility revenues, paying debt service on its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties,” the statement from Reedy Creek says.

In addition to the taxes on itself, as well as property taxes paid to Orange and Osceola counties, the district can borrow money to help pay for infrastructure projects and services. It carries a long-term bonded debt of more than $977m, according to its latest financial report.

If the district goes away, households in Orange and Osceola counties could face higher property tax bills to the tune of $2,200 to pay down that debt, according to local tax officials and estimates from Democratic state legislators.

“This is not conjecture. This is Florida law that says those 1.7 million people are going to have to pick up this bill,” state Senator Gary Farmer said earlier this month. “This is ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’”

Opponents of the move have criticised Republican legislators for moving too fast to pass the measure, motivated by culture-war grievences, without first studying its impacts.

Republicans “had some misconception that Disney’s getting some special property tax break for Reedy Creek,’’ Orange County tax collector Scott Randolph told the Miami Herald. “It’s not.”

A statement from the governor’s office said “it is not the understanding or expectation for [the dissolution of] independent special districts to cause any tax increases for the residents of any area of Florida.”

“In the near future, we will propose additional legislation to authorize additional special districts in a manner that ensures transparency and an even playing field under the law,” the statement said.

Legislators will have until May 2023 to work out what happens next before the dissolve takes effect.

Following weeks of pressure among LGBT+ advocates and Disney employees urging the company to publicly lobby against the state’s GOP-backed Parental Rights in Education Act, Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced last month that the company would oppose the bill and suspend its political donations in the state.

Campaign finance reports reviewed by The Independent show that Disney entities donated tens of thousands of dollars to legislators who supported the bill, including at least $50,000 to the governor’s 2022 re-elelection campaign.

The measure, which Governor DeSantis signed into law on 28 March, prohibits instruction of “sexual orientation or gender identity” from kindergarten through the third grade and any such discussion “that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students” in other grades. Similar measures have been proposed in more than a dozen other states.

Opponents have warned that the law will restrict classroom lessons on LGBT+ events and history and limit how LGBT+ students, staff and their families are represented in schools.