Florida Tourism Officials Replace Employees' Disney Theme Park Perks With $3,000 Stipend

It’s a compromise, of sorts.

The Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which replaced the Reedy Creek Improvement District at Disney World, has decided to strip employees of its free annual park pass and other benefits.

Instead of the perks, the District voted to give each Disney employee a $3,000 annual stipend.

While it might be more money in each employee paycheck, it’s a blow to lose the coveted perks from the park. The benefits not only included the free annual passes, but discounts on Disney merchandise.

Board member Ron Peri said “We thought it also made sense to provide our employees and retirees who did not use the passes with a new benefit, and that is the freedom to receive the cash value of the passes instead of the passes themselves.”

It is probably too early to tell whether the tradeoff of the stipend for the passes and the merchandise is an even value.

But it does, however, indicate a willingness by the new Tourism Oversight District to compromise on a key issue amid the verbal warfare that has gone on in the last year between the governor and Disney leadership. DeSantis was upset when Disney publicly challenged one of his policies.

The new board nonetheless called for a Florida inspector general’s investigation of the benefits. Employees said that some of the benefits were part of the reason that drew them to Walt Disney employment. For the time being, the park still will not have autonomy over its own tax rate or fire department as it did for decades.

Both sides have filed lawsuits against each other, with the new oversight board going through the state courts and Disney trying its hand in federal court. Neither has been adjudicated yet. 

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