Not getting into the politics of this, but when you look at the financial weight this will lift off of Disney, and place back onto Florida, it is pretty substantial. Disney would no longer be footing the bill for any of their infrastructure, (Roads, water, electricity, ect...) and on top of that, they would stop conducting inspections on all of their property, (ie rides, hotels, restaurants, ect...)
Purely from a financial standpoint this isn't a bad thing, i haven't weighed into the restrictions that may be levied against Disney if this changes, and would love if someone could enlighten me on it.
RCID is a dream come true from a development standpoint: all of its land is exempt from all county and most state regulations, such as development-impact fees, environmental-impact fees or costly and time-consuming regional-impact studies. Build whatever and wherever. The district writes its own zoning rules with the actual developer's guidance and pen. The district is regulated by building codes drafted with the actual developer's guidance and pen. Waterways, utilities and sewer systems are built to suit the developer's needs, not the communities needs in a general sense. The district is governed by a ruling body that is handpicked by the developer, i.e. The Walt Disney Company. Now, TWDC is forced to have to build, maintain and improve the property under the same regulatory environment and guidelines as other companies in Floridan and the local counties where the land is located. That type of development is going to be substantially more expensive to TWDC. This results in higher costs to TWDC and worse bottom line.
TWDC has save millions upon millions upon millions in interest by using tax-exempt bonds rather than conventional borrowing of money the way other companies do. Frankly, I would not be shocked if TWDC has saved over a billion dollars in interest payments. I haven't studied TWDC's books and that is purely a guess. For many, many years no one seemed to speak up about RCID's ability to bond debt. Well, then in 1986, the US Congress aimed to trim the federal deficit by limiting the availability of tax-exempt bonds. Thereafter, in or about 1988, the cuts really hit local municipalities hard when the State of Florida's bond dollars pool was drained. Suddenly RCID was competing with, and beating out, other local municipalities, including, Orange County, for the right to use those bond dollars. My understanding is that RCID was beating Orange County so badly that Orange County couldn't bond for low-income housing to service the citizens of Florida. At least, that's my understanding of what happened in the late 80s with Orange County.
So, there is a general question of whether or not the purpose of the bonds are being used for a public purpose when WDW gets the benefit. There is definitely a positive public benefit to a thriving theme park, but is that the point of municipal bonding: building Galaxy's Edge in DHS or affordable housing at another location inside Orange County? The more specific question is whether or not TWDC is going to see increased financial liability when it has to borrow in a more conventional manner (i.e. from a bank) and have to pay interest on its loan. I am going to assume banks are going to demand TWDC pay interest on a loan.
Finally, there is a significant tax issue for TWDC. TWDC owns its own gas, electric and water utilities on WDW property. It leases the utilities to RCID for millions of dollars annually. Because RCID is a municipal government, for a lack of a better term, it can use the tax-exempt bonds (noted above) to, expand, maintain and improve the utilities. RCID then charges TWDC for the gas, electricity, water, sanitation and sewer services TWDC uses to operate the parks and resorts. TWDC (I think because I'm not an accountant) then deducts those utility costs from its income tax returns, saving millions of dollars in tax liability over many years.
In my opinion, TWDC has done an exemplary job of providing strong services and improvements to its guests without straining the local counties and the larger taxpayer base. It is my further opinion that RCID constitutes corporate welfare, pure and simple. Both of my opinions can and do exist at same time. There is good and bad with RCID. Anyone who speaks in absolutes about this subject is really looking at this issue with a tribalist mind-set, in my opinion.