I think we're really talking about (at least) 4 separate issues here:
(1) Was the perk of park passes & discounts somehow an inappropriate/illegal deal with Disney?
I don't think so, for reasons that others have already addressed at length. It certainly wasn't illegal.
(2) Is a costly entertainment-based perk an appropriate expenditure by a government employer spending taxpayer money?
That's definitely a fair question and I think the answer is going to depend on the circumstances. Like any government expenditure, the guess the question is whether the particular perk provides reasonable value
to the taxpayers for the money spent, because it's their money.
So in this case I think the determinative circumstance is what many here keep pointing out but I feel like ranting about a bit: the vast majority of the taxes are paid by Disney, a long list of businesses leasing from Disney, and a small number of businesses that own the land on which they're operating. Those businesses are obviously there because Disney is there, not just because Disney built the area up in the past, but because they get access to the tourists who come to Disney now and in the future. People keep saying 'taxpayer money' as if we're talking about average homeowners who might not know their government is offering expensive perks, or who feel powerless to do or say anything about it, but that's not who we're talking about.
The 'taxpayers' here are basically Disney and the businesses that have decided the higher taxes incurred by being within the district are justified by the income they make by being part of the Disney resort. The perk we're talking about was never a secret; in fact I understand that some of the other taxpayers use the same program to give the same perk to their own employees.
And BTW, some of those other business owners (the 'taxpayers') have attended district board meetings this year to express worries about potential tax increases. Their concerns were most definitely
not related to the actions of the prior board or Disney.
Lastly, it shouldn't have to be repeated but while I'm here and feeling ranty: no one outside the district is contributing to the district taxes, plus Disney and the other district taxpayers pay county taxes,
in addition to the district taxes, at the same rate as everyone else in their respective counties.
(3) However you feel about (1) & (2), did it make sense for the district to blindside their employees and pensioners by suddenly cancelling this perk without any notice or discussion, and obviously without any analysis of the potential impact?
I don't think anyone here is arguing that the district wasn't entitled to cancel it.
People may disagree about whether it was unfair, but there's a pretty good argument to be made that it was just plain dumb. This perk was worth a lot of amount of money to a lot of employees, relied upon for decades in some cases, and it's been a significant piece of the district's ability to attract and retain employees.
Even assuming, as I do, that their decision was really about impugning Disney and f#@% the employees, their failure to consider that they might anger the firefighters, whose goodwill they've been cultivating, still screams just plain dumb. The fact that they're now scrambling to convince people they can find a solution, while smack in the middle of finalizing the budget, confirms that they didn't assess the potential consequences of the decision before they made it, weren't qualified to make the assessment in the first place, and/or didn't actually care about the consequences until they got bad press in the form of distressed firefighters.
(4) Can they fix this?
I don't think they can. They won't backtrack because they won't admit there was nothing inappropriate or illegal about the program.
Any replacement they do offer may please employees who weren't using the park pass program, but it will still leave many people feeling angry and betrayed, probably cost more than the old program, and create new complications because they scrambled for a fix without properly assessing all the ramifications.
Wow, this ended up way longer than I expected and I apologize to all because I'm really just rehashing what others have said.
My main point is that there are multiple interrelated but quite distinct issues here. I think that conflating them makes it easier for the bad actors to mislead, while making it harder for genuinely curious people to assess the information they find.
*** I'm mostly just seeking information too and many of you know a lot more about this situation than I do, so everyone please tell me if I've gotten something wrong, or if I'm just generally not making sense
***
