ORLANDO, Fla. – In April, at a meeting of the Orange County Charter Review Commission, a Winter Garden resident named Ed Williams told the group why he thought Orange County’s latest attempt to put a sales tax for transportation improvements on the November ballot failed.
“When you open up the tourist tax money for transportation improvements, we’ll support a tax of a penny,” Williams said. “We’ll support other funding concepts, but until you open that up… people are so fed up that that money is not available to help solve the problems created by the tourists.”
Williams was referring to the Tourist Development Tax, the tax Florida counties can put on hotel rooms and other lodgings.
In Orange County, the tax is 6%, bringing in $359 million in fiscal year 2023 alone.
Williams’ call to use some of that tourism windfall for roads or other infrastructure or county needs is not new. It’s an argument that has sprung up in the last two decades from time to time from…
