Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs bill dissolving Reedy Creek Improvement District and his office says Disney will pay more taxes

Apr 22, 2022 in "The Walt Disney Company"

Posted: Friday April 22, 2022 6:19pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

As expected, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed the bill calling for the elimination of Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Earlier this week, the Florida Senate voted 23-16 to pass a bill to dissolve Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District as Governor Ron DeSantis continues to work to punish Disney for opposing Florida's HB 1557, also known as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

Disney now faces the real possibility that the Reedy Creek Improvement District will be dissolved on June 1 2023.

DeSantis said after signing the bill, "You know, you did have the issue with our Parents Rights and Education bill...for whatever reason, Disney got on that bandwagon, they demagogued it, they lied about it," he said.

The bill is likely to receive several legal challenges before any implications are realized for Disney. At this stage, it appears that nobody involved in voting for the elimination of Reedy Creek has any plan to handle the district's massive debt and how current Reedy Creek responsibilities could be handled by Orange and Osceola Counties.

After signing the bill, DeSantis said, "People say, they have services and utilities. We're going to take care of all that, don't worry. We have everything thought out." He did not go on to offer any details or plan of how that would work.

He went on to say, "I don't even know that I knew the name of it prior to this becoming something that was live in the past few months."

Speaking to Fox News, when asked how eliminating Reedy Creek would be carried out in reality, Florida's Speaker of the House commented that "We have a year to figure that that out."

The press secretary for Ron DeSantis said on Twitter, "People will [ask about Disney's] services & utilities. We're gonna take care of that. Don't worry. We have everything thought out. Don't let anyone tell you somehow Disney's going to get a tax cut out of this. They're going to pay more taxes as a result of this."

Representatives of Orange County have suggested that its residents may see massive tax hikes to cover the Reedy Creek debt.

"The moment that it dissolves, that money's gone. And instead, what happens is all the debts and obligations of Reedy Creek get transferred over to Orange County government," said Scott Randolph, Orange County tax collector.

The creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967 allowed Disney the luxury of establishing its own independent government that handles many aspects of the Walt Disney World property, including emergency services, infrastructure, and construction permitting.

These latest developments follow escalating tensions between DeSantis and Disney CEO Bob Chapek regarding Disney's opposition to Florida's HB 1557, also known as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

Disney has suspended all political donations in the state of Florida in response to the bill.

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josiah mazelin13 days ago

I said basically. You just listed two rides at each park. My point is proven

Goofyernmost14 days ago

With the kind of promotion that they once were famous for were to be used, they can get all the hype they need and spend a hell of a lot less to do it. They have to make what they have be exciting and not worry about what others might be doing. They stayed on top for about 60 years doing that and then, I assume to give bigger bonuses to the executives, they stopped producing those things and even if they don't admit it, they are running scared at the moment, in spite of increased profits. They have to make that dominance last, but I don't see them doing that unless they fill up those empty buildings and put something good in them and promote, promote, promote. That is second only to location, location, location.

Sirwalterraleigh14 days ago

Galactic spirit Halloween was sorta in that ballpark

Sirwalterraleigh14 days ago

Nah…they’ve crossed the Rubicon on “attracting middle class families”. They’re well past that price point to make any such endeavor turn out to be anything but a “loss” to the stock wonks. That strategy was their philosophy for many years…expansion to create more traffic and sell more product across all business was Eisner 101 - essentially, but they dumped that 15-20 year ago. Limiting investment and all but eliminating expansion to cap overhead and then attempting to make more revenue/profit off what was already paid for. That strategy is incompatible with “expanding/pricing to make it more accessible”

JoeCamel14 days ago

It's non-sensical too, increase your costs to get less money per guest and do huge capital outlays? Bob sez nyet

Tha Realest14 days ago

There’s no evidence 1) this is happening, or 2) they intend to do this.

ChrisFL14 days ago

They had a 5th gate and they closed it..................DisneyQuest :p

Advisable Joseph14 days ago

Disney needs land to expand. Pulling guests from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot (or otherwise unceasing attraction supply for the guests), then lowering prices to increase volume (and income) and accessing middle-class families, while building out the other parks, is the idea. Would you consider a Magic Kingdom Colony across the Lagoon or part of the current parking lot, which guests could access with Magic Kingdom tickets, a "5th gate"? How about parking, so the park can expand into the old parking lot?

gwhb7514 days ago

Agree with this. The only unfortunate thing is that "expanding existing parks" doesn't get the same hype as "a whole new park". Now if we could only have a true expansion of existing parks (i.e. just add new things (like villains land) and not take things away first (like tropical americas in AK)).

JoeCamel15 days ago

I think a lot of the salivating over a new park is fatigue with the same offerings year after year or a dribble of something new. Stale has a stench. Fans have "done" everything in the parks time after time so they want new and "damn the cost it's what I want". Does not have to be logical or make sense it is a want and I need my wants fulfilled ipso facto TDO is going to build me a new park. Seems to point to someone who has never run a business nor cares if that business thrives to feed the stockholders

monothingie15 days ago

Forget the tremendous capital expense to build a new park. The most important thing to Disney is YOY growth. The quarterly earnings mean EVERYTHING to Bob and Wall Street. Key amongst that is that Disney cares tremendously about operational costs and maximizing LL revenue streams. While a new park may be tremendously popular, it also increases operational expenses significantly. It is also very likely that it will cannibalize a large portion of the existing guest base. LL brings in a tremendous amount of revenue for Disney. It works best for Disney with full parks, adding a new park will dilute LL revenue at the existing parks. If a new park was going to justify the build cost and not affect the OI for WDW, then shovels would have been in the ground already. They've done the analysis, and a new park is not financially viable at this point.

lazyboy97o15 days ago

Planning permission and building permission are two separate things. You need planning approval first. Comprehensive Plans (along with Master Plans, Future Land Use Plans and Zoning Plans) are also not set in stone and quite malleable.

Dranth15 days ago

I disagree with him on a number of things, but he isn't wrong on this one. They have underbuilt parks that can absorb a LOT more people if they expand them. Those parks have existing infrastructure which makes it easier and cheaper to develop and build out vs. an entire new park. They understand their main audience has limited vacation time and already know people are unlikely to extend their vacations but instead sacrifice one thing they would have done for something else. They have a strained employee pool that has never recovered from 2020 and staffing new builds in existing parks is WORLDS easier than trying to staff an entire new park. Even an entire parks worth of attractions built over the four current parks would require less staffing than the same number of attractions in a brand-new park once you factor in employees for back of house, support, utilities, security, transportation, etc. Sure, nothing is impossible, and I'll gladly admit to being wrong on this if it does happen, but it would be business malpractice to do so in Florida anytime soon. I would expect most of the other locations around the world with room to get a new gate before Florida.