News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

[mmascari]

Speaking of the roads going over to the county, if that really happened does anyone know if it’s theoretically legal for the county to put a toll on roads into WDW? If the counties have an additional cost to maintain those roads and no increased tax revenue to pay for it could that be part of a solution? They could generate millions annually with even a small toll of a dollar or less. It would mostly hurt local visitors and especially hurt workers who really cannot afford it but if it can help avoid a 20-25% tax hike for the county I’d imagine they’d consider it.

Let's imagine they can. Then add in that they want to really charge visitors but not locals who work there.

They could add an E-ZPass toll, with pay by plate camera too, in strategic locations to charge people headed to the parks. They could have a monthly commuter plan that keeps the charge to something like $25 a month. That solves the locals, they'll all need to sign up for the plan. Then, charge everyone else $25 a day to really milk visitors. People already paying $25 to park at the theme parks. Just double it and collect that much for the county too. Evil Laugh.

How many people park at the parks everyday already?
How many years of that to pay off ONE BILLION DOLLARS? (Please read with appropriate voice.)

 

[GoofGoof]

Let's imagine they can. Then add in that they want to really charge visitors but not locals who work there.

They could add an E-ZPass toll, with pay by plate camera too, in strategic locations to charge people headed to the parks. They could have a monthly commuter plan that keeps the charge to something like $25 a month. That solves the locals, they'll all need to sign up for the plan. Then, charge everyone else $25 a day to really milk visitors. People already paying $25 to park at the theme parks. Just double it and collect that much for the county too. Evil Laugh.

How many people park at the parks everyday already?
How many years of that to pay off ONE BILLION DOLLARS? (Please read with appropriate voice.)

I wasn’t even considering using it for debt services. In the RCID annual report there is roughly $32M in transportation costs which I assume covers the road maintenance as well as the parking garages. Lets just say for arguments sake 100,000 cars a day cross over those roads between employees, various contractors doing work at WDW and guests. A $1 toll covers the costs. If it’s 50,000 cars then $2 toll. To get more specific here are some ballpark guesses:

• There are over 70,000 CMs at WDW but not all of them work every day and the ones who do may not all drive in. To be conservative let’s say 30,000 cars a day for CMs
• Between the various construction and resort refurb projects at WDW there must be another 5,000-10,000 workers on site doing construction or maintenance work
• For guests if we assume 150,000 guests a day on average at the theme parks and half are not staying on site that’s 75,000 a day. Assuming roughly 3 people per car that’s 25,000 cars a day. I think I read somewhere the parks have around 45,000 available parking spots but they are probably not more than half full on average so 25,000 seems like a reasonable number.

Seems like maybe 60-70K cars a day so to cover the full budgeted expenditure for transportation alone $1.25 to $1.50 tolll.

The total cost for debt services is budgeted around $60M for 2022 so if the county wanted to attempt to cover that as well as transportation with tolls they would probably need to make the toll $4+ per car which seems pretty steep to me. I also don’t know the legality of that plan. Road tolls may be required to be used for roads so they may be limited to the debt used to fund roads and bridges.

As far as utility services, the county may be able to sell some of the power and water assets to another utility company who would absorb the costs to run them and would then take over the contracts to sell electricity, clean water and sewer services to Disney and the various resorts. The fire department is a tough one. That would just be added cost eaten by the counties. That’s over $36M in budgeted spend for 2022. Now maybe the counties cut services and pay less than RCID so they can provide the services cheaper, but it’s still a major increase in spend with no additional taxes. Could Disney agree to privatize the fire department instead? Maybe. If they want to maintain the same level of service that may be their only option.

I still think the most likely scenario is RCID remains but if that’s not the case the counties will need to consider ways to take on the additional cost without any increase in tax revenues. They cannot just raise taxes 20-25% on all tax payers. Since there is no mechanism to increase taxes on TWDC (outside of a special tax district which the state wants to avoid) adding road tolls could be a way to generate revenue without hitting regular tax payers with a big tax bill.

Please feel free to shoot holes through this idea. Just a thought and certainly not a fully baked plan. Ironically I’ve probably thought more about an actual plan than the lawmakers who pushed the bill. That says 2 things to me, #1 I need more of a life and #2 these guys should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

I wasn’t even considering using it for debt services. In the RCID annual report there is roughly $32M in transportation costs which I assume covers the road maintenance as well as the parking garages. Lets just say for arguments sake 100,000 cars a day cross over those roads between employees, various contractors doing work at WDW and guests. A $1 toll covers the costs. If it’s 50,000 cars then $2 toll. To get more specific here are some ballpark guesses:

• There are over 70,000 CMs at WDW but not all of them work every day and the ones who do may not all drive in. To be conservative let’s say 30,000 cars a day for CMs
• Between the various construction and resort refurb projects at WDW there must be another 5,000-10,000 workers on site doing construction or maintenance work
• For guests if we assume 150,000 guests a day on average at the theme parks and half are not staying on site that’s 75,000 a day. Assuming roughly 3 people per car that’s 25,000 cars a day. I think I read somewhere the parks have around 45,000 available parking spots but they are probably not more than half full on average so 25,000 seems like a reasonable number.

Seems like maybe 60-70K cars a day so to cover the full budgeted expenditure for transportation alone $1.25 to $1.50 tolll.

The total cost for debt services is budgeted around $60M for 2022 so if the county wanted to attempt to cover that as well as transportation with tolls they would probably need to make the toll $4+ per car which seems pretty steep to me. I also don’t know the legality of that plan. Road tolls may be required to be used for roads so they may be limited to the debt used to fund roads and bridges.

As far as utility services, the county may be able to sell some of the power and water assets to another utility company who would absorb the costs to run them and would then take over the contracts to sell electricity, clean water and sewer services to Disney and the various resorts. The fire department is a tough one. That would just be added cost eaten by the counties. That’s over $36M in budgeted spend for 2022. Now maybe the counties cut services and pay less than RCID so they can provide the services cheaper, but it’s still a major increase in spend with no additional taxes. Could Disney agree to privatize the fire department instead? Maybe. If they want to maintain the same level of service that may be their only option.

I still think the most likely scenario is RCID remains but if that’s not the case the counties will need to consider ways to take on the additional cost without any increase in tax revenues. They cannot just raise taxes 20-25% on all tax payers. Since there is no mechanism to increase taxes on TWDC (outside of a special tax district which the state wants to avoid) adding road tolls could be a way to generate revenue without hitting regular tax payers with a big tax bill.

Please feel free to shoot holes through this idea. Just a thought and certainly not a fully baked plan. Ironically I’ve probably thought more about an actual plan than the lawmakers who pushed the bill. That says 2 things to me, #1 I need more of a life and #2 these guys should be ashamed of themselves.

I don't know about the laws in FL regarding what toll revenues can be used for, but the bonds have to be paid with the revenue sources stipulated in the Official Statement produced when the bonds were issued - so property taxes for the Ad Valorem Tax bonds and utility charges for the Utility Revenue bonds. The reason for that is because those are relatively certain revenue streams whereas road tolls for cars headed into or through WDW or a hotel tax can fluctuate and leave them short funds in a down economy. The bondholders are well protected by their contract, so if (a big if) this goes down as currently planned then DeSantis has stuck the taxpayers with an additional burden and no amount of blame-shifting can change that.

 

[Minthorne]

I wasn’t even considering using it for debt services. In the RCID annual report there is roughly $32M in transportation costs which I assume covers the road maintenance as well as the parking garages. Lets just say for arguments sake 100,000 cars a day cross over those roads between employees, various contractors doing work at WDW and guests. A $1 toll covers the costs. If it’s 50,000 cars then $2 toll. To get more specific here are some ballpark guesses:

• There are over 70,000 CMs at WDW but not all of them work every day and the ones who do may not all drive in. To be conservative let’s say 30,000 cars a day for CMs
• Between the various construction and resort refurb projects at WDW there must be another 5,000-10,000 workers on site doing construction or maintenance work
• For guests if we assume 150,000 guests a day on average at the theme parks and half are not staying on site that’s 75,000 a day. Assuming roughly 3 people per car that’s 25,000 cars a day. I think I read somewhere the parks have around 45,000 available parking spots but they are probably not more than half full on average so 25,000 seems like a reasonable number.

Seems like maybe 60-70K cars a day so to cover the full budgeted expenditure for transportation alone $1.25 to $1.50 tolll.

The total cost for debt services is budgeted around $60M for 2022 so if the county wanted to attempt to cover that as well as transportation with tolls they would probably need to make the toll $4+ per car which seems pretty steep to me. I also don’t know the legality of that plan. Road tolls may be required to be used for roads so they may be limited to the debt used to fund roads and bridges.

As far as utility services, the county may be able to sell some of the power and water assets to another utility company who would absorb the costs to run them and would then take over the contracts to sell electricity, clean water and sewer services to Disney and the various resorts. The fire department is a tough one. That would just be added cost eaten by the counties. That’s over $36M in budgeted spend for 2022. Now maybe the counties cut services and pay less than RCID so they can provide the services cheaper, but it’s still a major increase in spend with no additional taxes. Could Disney agree to privatize the fire department instead? Maybe. If they want to maintain the same level of service that may be their only option.

I still think the most likely scenario is RCID remains but if that’s not the case the counties will need to consider ways to take on the additional cost without any increase in tax revenues. They cannot just raise taxes 20-25% on all tax payers. Since there is no mechanism to increase taxes on TWDC (outside of a special tax district which the state wants to avoid) adding road tolls could be a way to generate revenue without hitting regular tax payers with a big tax bill.

Please feel free to shoot holes through this idea. Just a thought and certainly not a fully baked plan. Ironically I’ve probably thought more about an actual plan than the lawmakers who pushed the bill. That says 2 things to me, #1 I need more of a life and #2 these guys should be ashamed of themselves.

Could they charge Disney buses a toll?

 

[Lilofan]

I wasn’t even considering using it for debt services. In the RCID annual report there is roughly $32M in transportation costs which I assume covers the road maintenance as well as the parking garages. Lets just say for arguments sake 100,000 cars a day cross over those roads between employees, various contractors doing work at WDW and guests. A $1 toll covers the costs. If it’s 50,000 cars then $2 toll. To get more specific here are some ballpark guesses:

• There are over 70,000 CMs at WDW but not all of them work every day and the ones who do may not all drive in. To be conservative let’s say 30,000 cars a day for CMs
• Between the various construction and resort refurb projects at WDW there must be another 5,000-10,000 workers on site doing construction or maintenance work
• For guests if we assume 150,000 guests a day on average at the theme parks and half are not staying on site that’s 75,000 a day. Assuming roughly 3 people per car that’s 25,000 cars a day. I think I read somewhere the parks have around 45,000 available parking spots but they are probably not more than half full on average so 25,000 seems like a reasonable number.

Seems like maybe 60-70K cars a day so to cover the full budgeted expenditure for transportation alone $1.25 to $1.50 tolll.

The total cost for debt services is budgeted around $60M for 2022 so if the county wanted to attempt to cover that as well as transportation with tolls they would probably need to make the toll $4+ per car which seems pretty steep to me. I also don’t know the legality of that plan. Road tolls may be required to be used for roads so they may be limited to the debt used to fund roads and bridges.

As far as utility services, the county may be able to sell some of the power and water assets to another utility company who would absorb the costs to run them and would then take over the contracts to sell electricity, clean water and sewer services to Disney and the various resorts. The fire department is a tough one. That would just be added cost eaten by the counties. That’s over $36M in budgeted spend for 2022. Now maybe the counties cut services and pay less than RCID so they can provide the services cheaper, but it’s still a major increase in spend with no additional taxes. Could Disney agree to privatize the fire department instead? Maybe. If they want to maintain the same level of service that may be their only option.

I still think the most likely scenario is RCID remains but if that’s not the case the counties will need to consider ways to take on the additional cost without any increase in tax revenues. They cannot just raise taxes 20-25% on all tax payers. Since there is no mechanism to increase taxes on TWDC (outside of a special tax district which the state wants to avoid) adding road tolls could be a way to generate revenue without hitting regular tax payers with a big tax bill.

Please feel free to shoot holes through this idea. Just a thought and certainly not a fully baked plan. Ironically I’ve probably thought more about an actual plan than the lawmakers who pushed the bill. That says 2 things to me, #1 I need more of a life and #2 these guys should be ashamed of themselves.

RCID firefighters have been stretched when even there were guests trapped for hours stuck high above on the monorail on the tracks. Quite possibly if RCID is doing a major event rescue , if Orange County may be stuck on I-4 trying to answer a distress call fire event from Disney. Whoever takes over for for RCID will have to be trained in monorail guest rescue .

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

Disney should get out of politics and get back to doing what they do best.....................raising prices.

 

[GoofGoof]

I don't know about the laws in FL regarding what toll revenues can be used for, but the bonds have to be paid with the revenue sources stipulated in the Official Statement produced when the bonds were issued - so property taxes for the Ad Valorem Tax bonds and utility charges for the Utility Revenue bonds. The reason for that is because those are relatively certain revenue streams whereas road tolls for cars headed into or through WDW or a hotel tax can fluctuate and leave them short funds in a down economy. The bondholders are well protected by their contract, so if (a big if) this goes down as currently planned then DeSantis has stuck the taxpayers with an additional burden and no amount of blame-shifting can change that.

Agreed, but it’s a shell game really. The toll revenue just adds more money to the county overall. The bonds could be technically paid from Orange County Ad Valorem taxes but OC just reduces the amount of Ad valorem taxes currently allocated to all roads to cover the extra debt payments and then uses the toll money to pay for the overall road projects for the whole county not being funded by Ad valorem taxes. Net/net it’s the same for the county and the bond holders still get paid. The only way this could happen is if a court rules that the bonds can transfer to Orange County despite the guarantee given when issued. I still don‘t think that’s going to fly so this is really a what-if, academic debate.

Could they charge Disney buses a toll?

Theoretically, I suppose they could but I’m not sure where the toll booths would be. I was thinking more like the various on-ramps to enter Disney property vs roads inside the property. There are a lot of ways in and out so they’d have to plan accordingly and there’s a cost to setting up toll plazas and administering the toll that would have to be included in the amount charged.

 

[GoofGoof]

RCID firefighters have been stretched when even there were guests trapped for hours stuck high above on the monorail on the tracks. Quite possibly if RCID is doing a major event rescue , if Orange County may be stuck on I-4 trying to answer a distress call fire event from Disney. Whoever takes over for for RCID will have to be trained in monorail guest rescue .

That’s part of the reason I was thinking maybe they privatize it. Reedy Creek FD becomes a non-profit entity that Orange and Osceola counties agree to pay to run the Reedy Creek Fire Department. Maybe they agree to split the cost with Disney or something. They’d have to keep people on site either way. I’m way out of my area of expertise on this so maybe that’s not even legal. Trying to think outside the box on that one because it involves public safety and it would be really sad to see this political stunt jeopardize anyone.

 

[Smiley/OCD]

Agreed, but it’s a shell game really. The toll revenue just adds more money to the county overall. The bonds could be technically paid from Orange County Ad Valorem taxes but OC just reduces the amount of Ad valorem taxes currently allocated to all roads to cover the extra debt payments and then uses the toll money to pay for the overall road projects for the whole county not being funded by Ad valorem taxes. Net/net it’s the same for the county and the bond holders still get paid. The only way this could happen is if a court rules that the bonds can transfer to Orange County despite the guarantee given when issued. I still don‘t think that’s going to fly so this is really a what-if, academic debate.

Theoretically, I suppose they could but I’m not sure where the toll booths would be. I was thinking more like the various on-ramps to enter Disney property vs roads inside the property. There are a lot of ways in and out so they’d have to plan accordingly and there’s a cost to setting up toll plazas and administering the toll that would have to be included in the amount charged.

They could just erect overhead receivers ala E-Z pass and they could either read the transponder tags or read the license plates and send the bill to the driver’s home…before you ask, the rental car companies just forward the invoice to the renter…no employees/collectors needed, all done electronically. They could put them up on every entrance road onto property…it’s a very easy process. It’s very common in the northeast (NJ/NY/PA etc.

 

[GoofGoof]

They could just erect overhead receivers ala E-Z pass and they could either read the transponder tags or read the license plates and send the bill to the driver’s home…before you ask, the rental car companies just forward the invoice to the renter…no employees/collectors needed, all done electronically. They could put them up on every entrance road onto property…it’s a very easy process. It’s very common in the northeast (NJ/NY/PA etc.

I have no idea if anyone with any actual power is talking about this idea or how Disney would react. I think Orange County would be less interested in a conflict with their largest employer, but that being said I think if the state follows through on this and the court cases fail and RCID is really dissolved Disney will look to work with the counties to figure out how to move forward. Even though it would be a tax break for them I assume Disney is not looking to be part of a 25% tax hike for the county where their workforce primarily lives. That’s bad PR and they don’t really want to cause harm to the citizens of Orange and Osceola counties.

 

[lawrence53]

The pain in the *** is not adhering to the building codes or drawing plans that adhere to the building codes. The pain in the *** is waiting for the permits to be approved. That is the primary service that RCID provided to Disney; fasttrack permit approval. If they have to go through the same process every other company in the county has to go through, progress will grind to a halt.

I run a non-profit in huge city that owns and manages a four acre park open to the public. It's basically grass, tennis courts and a parking lot. I just spent two years waiting for the city to approve our permit for resurfacing the parking lot asphalt. Then, when it was approved (after two years), we went back and said, "You know, we have more money now, can we just have the permit approved to surface the new lot with paving stones that will look nicer?" and the city responded by saying we'd have to start the permit approval process all over again.

This is for a single 10 car parking lot. If Disney has to go through this for everything that changes at the resort, it will crush them. They know this. That is why management is silent right now.

RE "not adhering to the building codes or drawing plans that adhere to the building codes ...": The EPCOT Building Code (7 volumes) is available for purchase through ICC (same publisher as the Florida Building Code), and RCID's permitting process is similar to that of other government agencies in the State of Florida - just much more focused on special needs of the District. For additional info, see: https://www.rcid.org/doing-business/building-department/epcot-building-codes/

 

[ParentsOf4]

On Friday, Bloomberg reported:

Barclays Says to Buy Disney District Munis Amid DeSantis Feud​

​

There is potential for upside in the debt because the investor protections mean that the bonds may have to defeased, or paid off, in order for the district’s dissolution to go through, according to Barclays. There are several ways of defeasing outstanding bonds including a tender, make-whole or refunding, the strategists wrote.​

​

“Most options will likely result in price appreciation of outstanding bonds from current levels,” they said.​

​

...​

​

“We find the district’s bonds are attractive at current levels and recommend buying RCID taxable and tax-exempt bonds,” the Barclays strategists wrote.​

 

[JoeCamel]

On Friday, Bloomberg reported:

Barclays Says to Buy Disney District Munis Amid DeSantis Feud​

​

There is potential for upside in the debt because the investor protections mean that the bonds may have to defeased, or paid off, in order for the district’s dissolution to go through, according to Barclays. There are several ways of defeasing outstanding bonds including a tender, make-whole or refunding, the strategists wrote.​

​

“Most options will likely result in price appreciation of outstanding bonds from current levels,” they said.​

​

...​

​

“We find the district’s bonds are attractive at current levels and recommend buying RCID taxable and tax-exempt bonds,” the Barclays strategists wrote.​

I wonder how much of the debt Barclays holds?

 

[GoofGoof]

On Friday, Bloomberg reported:

Barclays Says to Buy Disney District Munis Amid DeSantis Feud​

​

There is potential for upside in the debt because the investor protections mean that the bonds may have to defeased, or paid off, in order for the district’s dissolution to go through, according to Barclays. There are several ways of defeasing outstanding bonds including a tender, make-whole or refunding, the strategists wrote.​

​

“Most options will likely result in price appreciation of outstanding bonds from current levels,” they said.​

​

...​

​

“We find the district’s bonds are attractive at current levels and recommend buying RCID taxable and tax-exempt bonds,” the Barclays strategists wrote.​

Here‘s the answer to the question posed earlier on who would buy RCID debt now. Pretty smart move. The debt is trading below par now so if most of it is called in less than a year you buy at $90 and get paid $100 in a year while still collecting 1 year of interest payments. If RCID continues and the bonds continue they will likely go back to trading at or above par and you cash out then or hold them and collect the interest. The only way you lose is if somehow the bonds don’t get repaid but there doesn’t seem like there’s a path forward where that happens.

I wonder how much of the debt Barclays holds?

Before this series of events Vanguard was the #1 holder of the bonds followed by several large pension funds. I would imagine the pension funds are more risk adverse so may be getting out. No clue what type of Vanguard fund holds the bonds so they could be selling too.

 

[The Mom]

The discussion was getting way off topic, so I've pushed it back.

 

[John park hopper]

m

The discussion was getting way off topic, so I've pushed it back.

maybe it's time to put it to rest

 

[mikejs78]

m

maybe it's time to put it to rest

I don't think it is. This is a continuing story and is worthy of a thread, I think.

 

[GoofGoof]

There’s an unwatch button in the top right corner. If you click it you stop getting updates when someone posts on the thread. Easiest way for a thread to go away for you.

 

[Brian]

Federal judge dismisses 1st lawsuit against DeSantis over Disney World’s Reedy Creek district

A federal judge on Tuesday quickly dismissed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis over the dissolution of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. The suit, filed last week by William …

www.sun-sentinel.com

In her order, U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that the suit was dismissed for several reasons, including the federal court’s lack of standing over state issues and because the law does not go into effect until July 2023.

 

[UNCgolf]

Federal judge dismisses 1st lawsuit against DeSantis over Disney World’s Reedy Creek district

A federal judge on Tuesday quickly dismissed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis over the dissolution of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. The suit, filed last week by William …

www.sun-sentinel.com

Can't open the link, but was this the one filed on behalf of taxpayers?

If so, I'm not surprised it was dismissed. There are a lot of strong arguments against this bill but it was not one of them.