Before raising sales taxes, tap hotel tax
New bill could make that happen
Imagine for a moment that you and your spouse decided to set up a vacation fund where 2% of every paycheck gets set aside for weekend getaways.
A swell idea … as long as times are good.
But say times get tough. You’ve run out of money to pay your mortgage. So you say to your spouse: Spouse, I think we should start spending some of our vacation money on things we actually need.
Your spouse refuses. You say: Spouse, I don’t think you understand. We can’t afford to put gas in our car. And you’re telling me you want to keep spending money on weekend cruises to the Bahamas?
Your spouse confirms that’s the case.
You’d probably think your spouse was a nincompoop.
Well, then you should know that Florida lawmakers have been nincompoops for decades.
Years ago, they passed a law — just like leaders in Nevada — that said hotel taxes could only be spent on certain things, like ever-expanding convention centers and tourism advertising campaigns.
Except Nevadans finally realized they were nincompoops. About 25 years ago, when Las Vegas schools, roads and parks were strapped for cash, they changed the hotel-tax laws to allow more flexibility.
Today, hotel taxes in Vegas pay for everything from elementary schools to a rail system. Vegas still has mountains of hotel tax dollars available to spend on its convention center and splashy ads. They just don’t have to spend all their hotel tax dollars that way. They gave themselves options.
Orange County, however, has not changed. We’re still nincompoops.
We have one of the worst-funded transit systems in America. Some hotel workers spend two or three hours a day riding buses because there aren’t enough direct routes. And county commissioners are now talking about raising sales taxes on everyone who lives here. (That’s you.)
Before we go taxing residents again, we should use the money that’s right under our noses.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, has filed an anti-nincompoop bill to do just that.
HB 6075 would allow Orange County to spend more local tax dollars on local needs. Similar to what Vegas and a few other places in Florida, including Key West and Brevard County, have done for years.
Her bill wouldn’t throw out all the spending restrictions. Hotel-tax spending would still have to somehow be connected to tourism, like perhaps funding bus or rail routes that serve the tourism corridor.
But by loosening the restrictions on local hotel taxes — a 6% tax on hotel rooms that raised nearly $300 million in Orange County alone in 2019 — Eskamani said the county could provide residents more services and reduce their tax burden. “We’re finding solutions to pay for important infrastructure without raising local taxes,” she said. “That’s a win-win.”
Eskamani said the current system of funneling tax dollars to tourism interests while local workers struggle “prioritizes tourists over residents.”
I’ve argued this for years. Unfortunately, most local politicians have traditionally taken marching orders from the hoteliers and theme park execs.
But the winds of political change are blowing with a new generation of elected officials willing to challenge the status quo — leaders who got into office based on grassroots support rather than
tourism endorsements.
Not just Eskamani, but also new County Commissioner Nicole Wilson, who ousted a theme-parkbacked incumbent last year.
Wilson has met tourism workers forced to take Ubers to and from work because they can’t afford a car or find a decent bus route. “Taking care of a tourism workforce is taking care of tourism,”
Wilson said.
That’s what Las Vegas decided. That’s also what Key West concluded when leaders there pushed do use hotel taxes on workforce housing, realizing many low-wage workers couldn’t even afford to live in the city where they were busing tables and cleaning hotel rooms. Some made hours-long bus commutes in from Miami each day.
Few Orlando and Orange County leaders, other than former county Mayor Mel Martinez, have shown such spine. Most parrot tourism talking points that claim tourism needs all the taxpayer-funded subsidies it can get...as if tourism couldn’t spend its own money on marketing the way most industries do.
In fact, most local pols seem to enjoy the restrictions on hotel-tax spending, because it helps them justify spending gobs of hotel tax dollars on yet another expansion of the 7-million-squarefoot convention center or another $50 million for Visit Orlando. They say: Golly, we’d sure like to spend this money on buses or cops, but the rotten law says we can’t. Our hands are tied.
“Well, let’s untie them,” Eskamani said. “Let’s restore local control.”
That’s what local leaders in Brevard County did three years ago, successfully pushing legislators to allow them to spend hotel taxes on such local needs and transportation and water pollution.
Mayors Jerry Demings and Buddy Dyer should push to unshackle themselves as well — not just because spending hotel taxes on local needs is the right thing to do, but also because I promise them this: Things will change.
Just like they did in Vegas. Just like they did in Key West. Just like they did in Brevard County.
Residents are sick of being asked to shoulder tax increases while tourism interests horde so much for themselves. So voters are electing feistier leaders like Eskamani and Wilson who will push for change.
“This may ruffle some feathers, but so what?” said Eskamani. “It needs to happen.”
“Absolutely,” Wilson said. “This this the time.”
The time to stop taking orders from tourism. The time to start providing services residents need. The time to stop acting like nincompoops.