Orange drops proposed sales tax
Mayor Demings failed to find support for a transportation referendum
With consensus proving elusive, Orange County commissioners decided Tuesday to abandon a November sales tax referendum to improve a failing transportation network.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who was leading the sales-tax campaign, made the motion to halt it and the board unanimously agreed.
“From the beginning, I wanted to at least have the conversation because so many people in the community wanted us to have the conversation, they wanted to give input,” he said. “We certainly have made a noble attempt to do that…”
Demings said he was concerned the issue didn’t have “the buy-in we need… to not have failure at the ballot box.”
The tax proposal had struggled to gain traction since Demings first floated it in early February. A 2022 effort to pass a transportation sales tax was blasted by Orange County voters, with 58 percent voting no, and the mayor never persuaded his colleagues that things would go differently this time.
Demings sought to build enthusiasm at a series of community meetings over the last month. But turnout was sparse, with each attracting fewer than 50 people, and audiences were sometimes combative.
Tuesday’s decision came after a two-hour work session on the topic, the board’s third this year. Commissioners faced an April 23 deadline to place a referendum on the November ballot, and were expected Tuesday only to set the amount and duration of a possible tax. Demings had proposed a 1% hike for 20 years, which would have raised an estimated $759 million annually.
But as the discussion continued, a majority of commissioners said they could not support the tax plan no matter how it was structured.
“We all know we have a trans
portation issue but before you go tell the voters you need to pay for it, we need to exhaust everything financially we can,” commissioner Mayra Uribe said. “No one’s come to see me at the county with anything comprehensive to bring this home.”
Other commissioners said they didn’t know how to convince county residents that a tax increase would benefit them.
Commissioner Nicole Wilson, who represents Horizon West, Winter Garden and other west Orange communities, said her constituents have few options other than toll roads or a clogged State Road 50.
SunRail would likely have gotten some of the tax proceeds, but it doesn’t run east-west. The bus isn’t regular or reliable enough for many.
“I’ll be talking with people in Oakland, Winter Garden and Windermere, and I literally have nothing to show them,” Wilson said.
The failure to assemble a transportation plan in 2024 leaves the county few options other than to try again at the ballot box in 2026.
The needs are so vast that some sort of tax increase seems like a necessity. Demings has said the county has $20 billion worth of transportation needs and an operating budget under $7 billion. He has also said Orlando needs a worldclass transit system and that needs a dedicated funding source.
To people eager for a solution to the county’s transit woes, Demings urged them Tuesday to stay engaged.
“We did not say that we won’t try this in the future,” he said, adding that transformational projects “cannot be done within the breadth of the current budget we have.”
The county set aside $100 million for transportation projects in the current fiscal year, including some aimed at improving a dismal pedestrian safety record.
He said the respite “will give us time to work out all of the intricate details and the possibility that we could get our entire board behind it.”
He said the county would continue to address transit deficiencies incrementally as best as possible. “But a lot of people in our community are concerned about where we are,” he said. “We’ve fallen behind.”