>>This week on NewsNight, a central Florida tourism surges, officials attribute record fed tax revenue to the opening of Epic Universe and Brightline secures federal grants to enhance rail safety as the company expands passenger capacity between Orlando in Miami.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shap our community.

First, tonight, Centra Florida's tourism industry continues to gro despite economic uncertainty.

Figures out this wee from Orange County show tourist tax receipts are on course to smash annual records following the opening of Epic Universe in May.

Tourist development tax revenue for August is up more than 10 from the same month a year ago.

That surge in TDT dollars is expected to be part of a broader tax discussio in the next legislative session, beginning in January.

As governor, DeSantis continue his push for the elimination of property tax.

That proposal would need to be approved by voters next year.

The new tourist developmen tax numbers mean Orange County is likely to set a new annual record when September's data is released at the beginning of November.

UCF economist Sean Snaith says the opening of Universal's new theme park this summer is a major economic driver.

>>It's significant in terms of economic activity.

It's significant in terms of jo creation.

It's also significan in terms of tax revenue for the region, not just tourist development tax, which is will certainly be, boosted, but, you know, property taxes that help pay our, you know, services here locally, pay for our schools, pay for our public safety- >>Sales tax as well, presumably.

>>Absolutely.

>>That boom in tax takings comes as governor DeSantis pushes for a wholesale rethink of Florida's taxation model.

As Snaith mentioned Epic Universe is likely to boost property taxes as well as tourist development taxes.

But lawmakers are currently chewing over ways to cut o even eliminate property taxes, and that means that current restrictions on the way local governments can use TDT moneys has already become a hot topic in Tallahassee.

>>When you have bad spending, you have, higher than what you should have in terms of property taxes.

>>Counties and municipalities are facing pressure from Florida's DOGE task force to cut property taxes.

The state says they could easily do it by addressing wasteful spending.

Nevertheless, it's prompted concerns over what it would mea for local government finances.

As part of that debat in the last legislative session, some state lawmakers proposed allowing local governments to tap into a percentag of TDT revenues that currently they're force to spend on tourism promotion.

>>If we are going to reduc revenue from property taxes or eliminate it, it's also up to us to create more flexibility.

And the biggest issue in Orange County has been the tourism development tax, and the inability for that to be spen on other infrastructure needs.

>>Democrat Anna Eskamani who sits on a House select committee studying property taxes, has lon supported TDT diversification, but she doubts it would offset the loss of property taxes, especially in areas with few tourists.

>>This committe really is diving into the weeds.

You know this is not as black and white as the governo makes it out to be.

If you completely eliminat property taxes you'r defunding law enforcement, firefighters, public schools, public libraries.

And I think it's reall important to also remember that Florida has 67 counties, 400 some municipalities at the city level, and they all operate very differently.

In fact, for fiscally constrained counties, as a state, we subsidize our public school system dramatically.

So.

And if you eliminate property taxes, they have no revenue generation, because these are not counties where they have visitors.

>>Anna Eskamani there.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

And joining us in the studio this week, Nick Georgoudiou from the Community Paper.

Good to see you, Nick.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Thanks so much for comin in, Donovan Myrie, WKMG News 6.

Thanks for coming in, Donovan.

>>Nice to see you-- >>Good to see you.

And Alexa Lorenzo, as ever from WFTV Channel 9, good to see you Alexa.

>>Likewise.

>>Thanks for coming in today, guys.

Alexa, let's start with you on this one.

Just walk us through those latest bed tax numbers that we were talking about there.

How are things looking?

>>According to Comptroller Phil Diamond.

Very, very good.

He says compared to last year's August we've seen a 10% increase in those TDT collections which is roughly $25.6 million.

So as you mentioned in your piece, it's not if we're going to break last fiscal years records, it's by how much at this point, we're seeing annually $355.1 million in TDT collections.

Last fiscal year, it was $360 million.

So we are going to see a pretty significant jump.

So at this point, the leaders are happy with what we're seeing.

>>TDT of course is charged on hotel stays, short term rentals, that kind of thing.

What is Visit Orlando said about occupancy this year?

>>2025 has been a banner year, so up every month except for one.

And even that year or that month in March, the number of dollars that was collecte was up year over year as well.

So it's up about 73% for occupancy rate, and the average daily rate has been up so far this year too.

>>Well, I wonder if this is exceeding expectations.

News 6 talked with Phil Diamond, the comptroller and industry analyst before Epic University opened.

To kind of get a feel, you know, for what they thought might happen.

Do these new numbers seem to line up with what they were expecting?

>>They were expecting big.

You know, everyone likes new and shiny, and Epic was the new and shiny thing.

Back in, when Animal Kingdom opened, they saw an increase of about 8%.

But when Islands of Adventur opened, it was only about 1.8%.

>>Interesting.

>>Bu Diamond said that, you know, people were going to, quote unquote.

He literally said, check this out.

And then one industry analyst said, one of the interestin things was in the opening weeks, you were going to have a hard time getting those single day tickets.

So suddenly I have to stay three days.

I have to stay five days.

You can still ge you can get single tickets now.

>>Yeah.

>>But you know, when that when it was all new and shiny, lots of people were coming down here to check it out.

>>It'll be interesting to se whether that momentum continues.

And of course, the more nights you stay, the more bed tax you pay.

Let's talk about how this ties in with with property tax.

The legislature is probably going to take anothe look at this property tax issue as it sort of discusses how to to make up revenues.

One of the areas that they're looking at i whether TDT dollars can be spent more broadly, by local governments.

But just remind us how the tourism industry pushes back against efforts to do that.

>>They call it economic sabotage.

They think that if we start putting TDT elsewhere besides tourism, we will take a financial hit.

Groups like Visit Florida, Destination Florida have done several analysis to figure out what that impact would be, and they say within two years of TDT going elsewhere, we could see a 30% decrease here in Florida.

We could see a $37 billion economic hit loss in tax revenue, loss in jobs.

So they are thinking that this would be catastrophic for the tourism industry going on to say people would fly over Florida if we weren't doin the marketing that we're doing.

>>Yeah.

The results of the administration's pressure on local governments to cut property taxes seems to b getting kind of mixed results.

What do you say?

>>Yeah.

So they're finding that, they have to really emphasize some of these taxe in order to pay for the things that are happenin within their counties.

So, for example, Seminole County is going to raise its taxe by 10%.

While it's not getting the full DOGE audit that some of the other counties and cities got, they still got a little bit of backlash from Florida CFO about that.

But, committee or a group of, city and county commissioners and, different officials went up to talk to, the House legislature.

The council that was going on there to talk a little bit about it and to push back a little bit on what, what was going on.

What has, the CFO said about it?

>>He says that he has been abl to find what he calls wasteful and excessive spending say-- >>That's Seminole County.

>>In Seminole County, correct.

Even though it wasn't a full DOGE audit like Orange County or Orlando other people have been getting, he still pinpointe what he considers problem areas.

He says since 2019, the team identified about $49 million of unnecessary expenditures.

Putting the general fund, it's grown by 137 million since that 2019, saying that's a 46% increase where population only increased by 6%.

The math isn't adding up, in his eyes.

So he's going to continue to, press for tighter local fiscal accountability.

But again, he stresses this is not a full DOGE audit.

>>Similar arguments to wha they're making in Orange County.

>>The math is adding up if you take into account inflation and higher property values.

So that' why the tax revenue is going up.

While the increase in population isn't necessarily the same.

>>Yeah.

That's the tension.

That seems to be at the center-- >>Between the two.

>>Of the debate.

You can find a link to the Orange County Comptroller's latest report on tourist development taxes on our website to read for yourself.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay, next tonight we're keeping track of some of the changes for Brightline.

Two year after the private rail company began operating trains between Orlando and Miami.

Now the company's expanding passenger capacity, adding train car to its long distance services.

It's also increasing the frequency of peak time departures on its South Florida stretch.

Brightline is currently cutting fares between Miami and West Pal to boost short haul ridership, while average fares have increased on its Orlando route, which accounts for two thirds of its passengers.

Overall the Brightline ridership was up more than 20% in August compare to a year ago, but the company still faces pressure from bond markets over its finances.

Meanwhile, Brightline is getting $42 million in federal grant funding for safety upgrades, including safety fencing, grade crossing upgrade and a tresspassing alert system.

In Brevard, a separate $4.9 million grant was awarded earlier this year to the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization for physical barriers at rail crossings.

Cocoa is also still seeking federal funding for a Brightline station in the city, after being rejected in its request last year.

Krystel Knowles spoke this week with Georganna Gillette from the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization.

>>Now that we have Brightline, which is higher speed passenger rail, it has become very clear, that seven of these crossing can really be enhanced.

You know the biggest challenge is that, you know, there are vehicles that attempt to trespass, go around the gates and go on to the track and that is extremely dangerous.

So we, developed this grant in an effort to, improve safety.

And it is in line with our Vision Zero, effort.

And that is to, you know, eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.

And so this grant will help us in that effort.

>>Georganna Gillette, there.

Okay, let's get into, some of the details of this.

Alexa, this is your beat on transportation.

Just give us some of the details of how this federal money is is going to be spent.

And presumably, Brightlin welcomes this infusion of cash.

>>So it's about $42 million, and it's going to be for ne gate arms for new delineaters, which are those orange kind of poles that you see fencing, signage, different grade crossing upgrades.

And we've seen in Brevard County that more of that is needed.

So local leaders are welcoming this.

Brightline is also welcoming it, saying that they applaud the federal government for making this money come down a little bit, a little bit faster for them.

They also say they are happy to partner with Florida Transportation local agencies to improve safety.

Another part, of this grant is for different technology and AI, powered cameras that will see, okay, this is an area where people continue to cross, trespass in kind of their terms and we need to do something more in that crossing.

>>Is this extra government money being welcomed on the Space Coast an in other communities, I presume?

>>I think it is being welcomed anytime you can improve safety, you know, they're all for it.

I think the big trade of was the fact that at first FEC wasn't going to, give their approval for the grants that they were, applying for.

And, you know, unless you closed some of the crossings, here's a problem.

Melbourne itself, there are 22 crossings in Melbourne.

It's insane.

Literally every, you know, three or 4 or 5 blocks.

Yeah.

There are crossings, with closing those crossings to FEC or any crossing is a potential for crash.

So the fewer crossings you have, the fewer crashes.

What is not taken into accoun is when you close that crossing, you've now basically closed, an artery for somebody to get from one side of town to another.

And what do they end up doing, end up walking down the tracks to get to the next thing, or they end up basically crossing the tracks that they shouldn't where they trespass.

So it's, you know, safety.

Great.

AI, that will help.

We'll see how it pans out.

But the big problem is you've got high speed rail in a very dense area, and that it does not add up to you know, good safety.

>>I mean, you've covered the political tension.

I guess it is between local municipalities and the Florida East Coast Railway, which owns that track, I guess, but at least between Cocoa and Miami, have loca governments, broadly speaking, we just hear from the Brevard side of things, have they been agitating for these changes?

>>They, you know, anything again, to to help safety.

Great.

But at the same time, they want to preserve their neighborhoods.

When I spoke to the vice mayo last year, two of the crossings that FEC wanted to close were in her district.

And she said, literally, if you're walking, you know and you're doing this legally, you are now basically walking 20 minutes to go that way, to cross over, to come back t where you originally want to go.

So, you know, for local leaders, yes, the railway is part of your community.

You know, what's you know, what can we do?

Let's make it safe.

They don't like the idea of crossing again because they don't like that idea of splitting up their neighborhoods.

And for the vice mayor, she goes, by the way, this happens to be one of the oldest neighborhoods in Melbourne, and it happens to be a neighborhood of color.

So it's this idea of, do you really care about this neighborhood?

As opposed to some of the richer neighborhoods, you're tryin to close down crossings there.

>>We see some of these issues not quite at the same scale, but with SunRail which of course passes through, the area that that you covered, Nick.

I mean, that's also this issue of crossings is, is a live issue in this area too.

>>Yeah.

And safety is a big component of that.

And while they're tryin to get SunRail to go more often, there's been a lot of talk about the cost and what will happen if it, you know, they had weekend service, for example, or more often service or later service on the weekdays.

There's a lot of talk about the cost of that.

Part of that cost will be, in taking into consideration safety issues.

>>The safety issues.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit abou these, Cocoa Station proposals.

Alexa, the Space Coast Transportation planning Organization, who we heard from just now, has been pursuin a, I guess, a station in Cocoa for for quite some time.

What do we know at this point about the status of this station?

And I guess there's one also that's set to ope on the Treasure Coast as well?

>>In a few more years now.

But we'll start with Brevard County.

They signed a memorandum of understanding, back in July.

That's the latest new we have for the Cocoa station.

It's basically you're going to do this.

I'm going to do this.

Under the agreement, Cocoa would lead the community planning process, kind of figure out how that station is going to look and the surrounding development for it.

While Brightline is expected to own or lease the land in which it's on, they applied for a grant.

That grant was rejected.

>>Yeah.

They're still looking for the money.

>>They're still looking for that money.

The grant process will reopen here shortly.

They say they are going to reapply.

Something similar is playing out in Stuart.

They applied for a grant, $45 million, that would cover the majority of the $6 million cost for that station.

The remaining 15 to come from the local community.

They were also rejected for that grant.

The station there was supposed to open in Stuart in 2026.

The new round for that grant now opens in 2026.

They'll need to reapply if they get it.

They could see the station there in store open in 2028.

>>But let's talk about th schedule changes a little bit.

There's this expansion in services, between Miami and Orlando.

What's that going to mean for for this community?

How do those changes look?

>>Yeah, one of the bright spots for Brightline is going to b that they have more ridership.

They said as of this August, year over year, it one up to 2 million rider versus about 1.83 last year.

And so what they're looking a is increasing the number of car they have on each train.

So that'll increase capacity.

Started ou with a capacity of around 240.

They might be as high as 600 by the end of the year with, you know, five, six, seven, maybe even ten trains or cars on each train.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry.

>>Oh, yeah.

No, I was just going to say too, they were looking at potentially increasing the, frequency of the trains, especially at peak hours.

So, you know, right now we have a train every half hour to two hours where you might have every half hour, especially in that peak area.

>>It does seem like Brightline's trying a lot of different things.

>>They're starting to, explore the idea of those shared workspaces at the stations as well, here in Orlando, where you can go in and take a meeting.

And from personal experience, my husband want to take the train down to Miami.

And he was like, well, now I have this meeting on my calendar.

I'm not going to make that train where something lik this would have worked for him.

So they're maybe seeing that from frequent riders and trying to figure out, okay, how can we get the train to align with people's work schedule and personal schedules?

>>Yeah.

This change in schedule though, is subject to a lawsuit right from the Florida East Coast Railway.

What's the complaint there, I think this is in South Florida.

>>Well, as you mentioned, Florida East Coast owns the tracks from Cocoa to Miami.

So Brightline essentially rents them out.

They have an agreement with, FEC to do that.

What FEC is saying in the lawsuit is Brightline has actually been negotiating with the counties to try to bring more local service on the same tracks, and FEC says that's not possible without infrastructure changes, additional costs.

And it was doing that.

It started negotiating those without FEC at the table, which is part of the requirement in the contract with Brightline.

>>As Alex just sort of alluded to there, this this sort of comes against the backdrop of pressure on on Brightline over its, its finances.

One of the concerns from the credit agencies, and I presume that Brightline believes that lot of the changes it's making will help try to resolve some of these fears.

>>Brightline has yet to make money.

In 2024, they lost $500 million you know, half $1 billion.

They're they're looking at expansion out west with Brightline West.

But the cost of that just went up another $5 billion or so.

At some point you have to make money.

Amazon hasn't made money yet, but we know Amazon's not going anywhere.

But at some point you have to start turnin a profit or turning the corner.

Well, they're relying more on these long hauls.

Orlando to Miami.

That seems to b where they're really liking this and cutting back kind of on the short hauls.

What's going to happen I don't know.

The other the other big question is you're going from Orlando to Miami, but are you really going from Orlando?

You kind of going from the airport, you know you're not going from downtown.

You know, and then people are talking also about Tampa.

There's a lot going on here.

And as they will tell you, building a railway sorta from scratch is pretty much not an easy thing to do.

>>Bu it's a really interesting story, and certainly one I'm sure we'll all keep across.

But that's all the time we have for this part of the program this week.

My thanks to Nick Georgoudiou Donovan Myrie and Alexa Lorenzo, thanks so much for coming in, guys.

>>Absolutely.

>>I really appreciate it.

Be sure to find us, meanwhile on social media, we're at WUCF TV on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll also find us on X @NewsNightWUCF.

Okay, finally tonight, an update on NASA.

The government shutdown is of course, impacting the agency.

Florida Today reports just ove 1,000 staff have been furloughed at the Kennedy Space Center out of more than 15,000 across the agency.

A reminder we do record the show on Thursday mornin so things can change by airtime.

NASA's already facing massive budget cuts demanded by the Trump administration.

And at the same time, it' implementing an executive order signed by President Trump in August, eliminating collective bargaining for union members working at the agency.

I recently checked in here in the studio with Brendan Byrne, Assistant News Director with Central Florida Public Media and host of the Are We There Yet?

podcast about some of the latest developments at NASA.

>>It's just another blow to employee morale at NASA.

We're just getting done with with risk reductions in workforce, that we still have ye to see the implications of.

Right.

The president required all these federal agencie to reduce their staff.

NASA did it as well.

There are multiple ways, you know, getting rid of probationary employees, voluntary, retirements and buyouts.

And now you, you you add this on top of it.

It is just made the folks that do work at NASA, feel really discouraged to be there.

Now, keep in mind, NASA for years was always the top federal agency when it came to, employe satisfaction and working there.

So, you know people wanted to work at NASA.

They were good to their employees and contractors, right?

Civil servants and contractors.

And now you have an additional blow to this morale.

You're seeing more and more people leave.

And it's very difficult to watch, you know?

>>NASA's also had the highest approval rating, generally speaking out of all government agencies.

I mean, some lawmakers have been pushing back on this idea of cuts at NASA.

That were particularly hit, I guess, its science and technology portfolios.

I wonder where that debate stands at the moment.

What are we hearing from the sides in this discussion?

>>Yeah.

When you look at the presidential or the president' proposed budget for NASA, we're looking at significant cuts, something like 25% cuts.

As you mentioned, in specific places like science, climate observation.

And we really haven't seen Congress follow suit in that as we go through this budget process.

You know, the how one chamber has has recommended, like no cuts.

Another chamber has actually recommended some some minor cuts, but but nowhere near 25%.

Those cuts in science will be they will have such an impact on, on both the agency and science as a whole.

We've we've talked to scientists, including one who' from the University of Florida, who works on Perseverance and Curiosity Rovers.

You know she has spent her 13 year career working with Curiosity.

All of that science goes away when the if this proposed budget goe through missions that have been out there for for years, you're talking about New Horizons that is flown by Pluto and is in the Kuiper Belt that shuts down.

So all of this investment tha scientists have made, is gone.

There's also the fact that ther is there's a lot of, you know, bringing the money back to to your your, constituency, a lot of pork barrel politic that comes to the space program that these legislative, these legislators in Congress do not want to see that money go away.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

The one caveat in, in the budget is that there is more of a focus on, on human missions and exploration missions, which we we Florida have, hav a very strong hand in as well.

So, so there's kind of a silver lining to all of this.

>>NASA's leadership has, floated, consolidating some function across, sort of major centers, I guess, to to cut costs.

They sa also to improve collaboration.

I mean, I wonder what that would sort of mean at places lik Kennedy and Johnson and Goddard.

I mean, they perform very specific roles.

Each of these centers.

>>Yeah they have very specific roles, and they hire a lot of peopl at all of these places.

Right.

You know there had been talk to move NASA headquarters to Kennedy Space Center.

Of course, Governo DeSantis wanted that to happen.

But but yeah, if-- >>W haven't heard much talk-- >>We haven't heard much talk about that since since then, which leads me to believe that, you know, we won't be seeing these, these consolidations, like we thought early in this administration, and they employ thousands and thousands of people at these places.

So when you go to consolidate, you're talking about moving a workforce across the country and possibly could lose that workforce.

>>Well one of the things that is moving is the, US Space Command that's being, relocated to Huntsville, from Colorado, Colorado Springs, I think, I think Florida had wanted to be in on on that action.

What do you make of that move?

>>This this was a move that was, it was debated at the end o the first Trump administration.

A decision wasn't mad until the Biden administration to pick a Colorado.

This has been political from the get go.

It remains political.

Spac Command is is a part of the U.S.

Space Force.

Its job is to protect u and our space assets in space, as far as we know, according to congressional records, and employ 1,700 people.

And now you're thinking of moving, you know, almost 2,000 people from Colorado to Huntsville.

In this move that that really has no other purpose other than it's political.

What does the administration say, though?

I mean, Colorado Springs has been hom to a lot of space activities for for a long time.

I mean, I guess so is has Huntsville, but not necessarily in this space.

>>Yes.

And the president mentioned that when he when he made this announcement of, of what Huntsville's, kind of role in, in space exploration is, but that was, that was kind of the, the, the argument by the administration as to why it would be there.

>>Brendan Byrne there from Central Florida Public Media.

Meanwhile, you can find a lin to the executive order on NASA labor unions on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

That is all the time we have for this week.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, for all of us here at NewsNight take care and have a great week.