CENTRAL FLORIDA hosts 66 million visitors a year and lays claim to being the world’s greatest tourist mecca. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2015, the next biggest Florida county’s tourist tax take was Miami-Dade’s, at $54 million. Broward County brought in $51 million. Osceola County collected $40 million; Monroe County, $38 million; and Pinellas County, $33 million. Orange County collected $201 million that year, and is expecting far more this year, $226 million. Combined, those next-five tourism counties barely collect as much tax as Orange. “When you compare it to other jurisdictions around the state, it seems almost mind-boggling,” Jacobs said. Much of Orange County’s bed tax’s uses are locked in state law, and in the contracts with voters that Orange County used as ballot questions. The first four cents have a prescribed set of uses, chiefly tourism promotion and convention center capital and operations, and to support tourism marketing, through the Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau, known publicly as Visit Orlando. The fifth cent has a prescribed set of uses, adding sports facilities to the first four cents’ list. And the sixth cent has its own prescribed set of uses, just the convention center and professional sports facilities. Where there is overflow, priorities are set. “We called it cascading buckets,” said former Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty, who was in office in 2006 when the tax was expanded. “The first bucket is the convention center … a lot of money is gone up front.” But already there is money threatening to trickle out of the bottom bucket. The tax is growing, by 12 percent this year, by a projected 8 percent next year, and by 4 percent in coming years. More cash is pouring in. Orange County also had planned to throw $20 million toward a soccer stadium, and that plan was cancelled last year when the state refused to match the local tax, leading Orlando City Soccer’s leaders to say: To heck with it, we’ll build our own stadium without public money. So that money’s available, too. And that excess money will overflow in a big way, soon enough. The venues’ money is tied up in paying off bonds. Those bonds will be paid off in the early 2020s. By 2024, there could be $100 million unencumbered. Annually. “Anytime there’s a big pot of money, 82 | INFLUENCE SUMMER/FALL 2016 The Orlando Science Center (top) features interactive exhibits for all ages; the Amway Center’s rooftop area (center) imparts an urban vibe to the Vacation Captial’s home court for the Orlando Magic (right).
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