Let today’s voters decide
Officials clinging to 1978 vote to justify tourist tax spending.
In April 1978, Jimmy Carter was president. The Berlin Wall still stood. Smartphones didn’t exist. And the voters of Orange County approved a non-binding referendum asking whether the county should tax tourists to pay for a $25 million civic center.
It also called for spending money on an arena and on tourism promotion. The vote paved the way for county commissioners to approve a 2% tax on motel rooms, campsites and short-term apartment rentals.
Forty-two years later — longer than today’s average Orange County resident has even been alive — county officials are clinging to that vote to justify spending virtually every last nickel of the tax as voters envisioned back then.
It was the central argument made to county commissioners by Fred Winterkamp, the county’s manager for fiscal and business services, during a June 23 briefing on a nearly $700 million convention center expansion. He wanted to persuade them that talk of spending the money on stuff like schools and roads and housing and law enforcement would break the faith with 1978’s voters.
The idea of spending so much more on an already mammoth convention center was suspect to begin with. It makes less sense now that coronavirus has demolished the revenue stream.
The county has more pressing needs, and it’s an ideal time hold a new straw vote and let the voters speak once again.
The commission should allow Orange County voters, maybe next year, to say how they think that tax money should be spent. Their answers might be very different this time, considering how much has changed since “Happy Days” was on TV. For example:
■ The 2% tourist tax has grown to 6%.
■ The tax generated $3.5 million in its first year. In 2019, it generated $284 million.
■ Orange County has expanded the convention center multiple times, spending billions to make it the second-biggest in the nation. The county’s tourist tax has contributed hundreds of millions toward two sports arenas and one of the nation’s premier performing arts centers.
■ Tourism is no longer a fledgling industry. It has grown from two major theme parks when the tax was first approved to seven, along with sprawling hotel resorts and entertainment districts. Much of it is owned by major corporations that make billions in profits every year.
■ Visit Orlando, the local tourism advertising entity, now gets $75 million in Orange County tourist tax money. That’s more than state government gives to the statewide tourism advertising agency.
Voters in 1978 probably never envisioned the economic juggernaut that Orange County tourism has become today. Or that the modest tax they were voting on would one day generate well north of a quarter
dollars in a single year.
We can’t know for sure, but it’s not crazy to believe those voters would declare “mission accomplished.” The goals of 1978 — outlined when the Bee Gees were the rage and the Dow finished the year at 805 points — have been met.
That’s why the county needs to go back to the voters again and find out what their priorities are now, four decades after that first non-binding vote.
Ask if they want to continue spending the tourist tax on convention center expansions, on tourism promotions and venues.
But this time, also ask if they want to spend some of that money to build a firstclass transportation system so weary tourism workers don’t have to spend hours on buses getting to and from low-paying jobs. Ask if they want to spend tourists’ money on better schools and better housing to help workers who power the economy but don’t much benefit from it. Ask if they want to spend it on parks closer to home and on better, safer roads.
Some of those things would require a change in state law. But if county commissioners know that’s what their constituents want, they should be ready to go fight for those changes instead of fighting for a status quo that’s become part of an economy that’s rigged against service-class workers.
We understand that tourist tax collections have cratered because of the pandemic, and the revenue figures we cited above will be much different in 2020. All the more reason for the county to reassess its spending priorities ahead of a recovery, however fast or slow that might be.
Winterkamp argued that the status quo for spending is OK because, after all, those big tourism businesses produce lots of property tax revenue. They do, but his view relies on the ageless Florida myth that growth pays for itself. (It doesn’t.)
Plus, a recent court ruling in a tax dispute could become a windfall in property tax savings for resort hotels, at Orange County’s expense.
Give credit to Commissioner Emily Bonilla for pointing out the obvious at the June 23 meeting — that things have changed since 1978, including a widening income gap between haves and have-nots.
The point was lost on fellow Commissioner Betsy VanderLey, who breezily replied that our nation was founded more than 200 years ago “and that’s working out.” Fortunately, an imperfect U.S. Constitution was changed and, thanks to the 19th Amendment, VanderLey would be able to vote on a new referendum asking voters how the tourist tax riches ought to be spent.
Do it, commissioners. Delay the convention center expansion, particularly in light of the uncertainty about the pandemic’s lasting impact on convention business.
Hold another non-binding referendum and find out what matters to 21st century voters.
Then keep the faith with their wishes, whatever those may be.
Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. The editorial board consists of Opinion Editor Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick, David Whitley and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com