Nov. 29–A proposal has emerged in the Florida Legislature that is incredibly unusual … because it is good.
The idea — to use hotel taxes to help pay for police officers — would make communities safer.
It would lower the tax burden on local residents.
It would demonstrate common sense and put citizens ahead of special interests.
Consequently, it has virtually no chance of passing.
Sorry if I sound jaded. But you can only get your teeth kicked in so many times before you stop smiling at the steel-toe boots.
And Big Tourism has been kicking Floridians in the mouth on this front for decades.
See, many tourism states and communities already spend hotel taxes on services that help everyone.
In Las Vegas, for instance, hotel taxes pay for roads and police.
This not only improves the quality of life for Las Vegans. It lowers their tax burden. (If hotel taxes pay for a road that tourists use, your property taxes don't have to.)
This isn't about gouging tourists. It's about charging them for the amenities they require.
"Tourists use our roads. They use our services. They should help pay for the problems."
Those aren't my words. Those are the words one Las Vegas resident said to me when I went to investigate the matter … nearly 15 years ago.
Yes, 15 years. That's how long Central Florida has been talking about this issue — and how long hoteliers and theme park lobbyists have been blocking it from happening.
The stakes are massive. In Orange County alone, hotel taxes generate $220 million a year.
Not one penny of that goes to police protection. Instead, state law requires spending it on convention-center expansions, new sports venues and vacation marketing — things that generate more tourism.
It is a wicked low-wage cycle.
Finally, though, one influential legislator says it is time for change.
Panhandle Republican Matt Gaetz — the chairman of the House finance and tax committee (and son of former Senate President Don Gaetz) — says citizens and law-enforcement often ask him why tourists can't do more to help pay for the services they need.
"It creates a burden on local property taxpayers, Gaetz said. "And they know that."
Gaetz's proposal would do many things — but most notably, it would allow up to 10 percent of hotel taxes to be spent on police that patrol tourist regions.
Stop and think for a moment about how strange it is to live in a state where local governments are banned from spending tax money on something as important as police protection.
That is the power of tourism.
Years ago, former county Mayor Mel Martinez stood up to provincial tourism interests. He told them they had no more right to dictate the spending of taxes collected in their hotels than Macy's has to dictate the spending of taxes collected in its stores.
But Martinez went to Washington. And after he did, most Orlando-area politicians went back to licking the teeth-kicking boots of the tourism interests that fill their campaign coffers.
So Gaetz is trying again — and this time he's trying to work with tourism interests. As a result, his attempt to rewrite hotel-tax law has a lot of moving parts.
Some seem fine — like his proposal that hotel taxes also fund the state's Visit Florida bureau. (Better hotel taxes than your and my general-fund taxes.)
Some seem like attempts to placate the industry — like requiring a fuzzy-math "return on investment" calculation for all expenditures, and giving the tourism bureaus the right to sue counties that misspend their money.
And some are rock-bottom awful — like Gaetz's proposal to reshape local hotel-tax spending boards to give tourism interests more control.
Some of this is junk that needs to be dumped. Even Gaetz acknowledged kinks, saying his proposed bill is a "work in progress." The important thing is that we finally are talking about rewriting archaic laws that give one special interest dominant control over public money.
Other states learned long ago that it makes sense to spend tourist taxes in a way that benefits tourists and reduces the tax burden on local residents.
For Florida, better late than never.
