As the Orange County school district faces a financial crisis over declining student enrollment and an expanding state voucher system, workers at Disney World and educators are calling on the Walt Disney Company to drop lawsuits it’s filed over local property tax assessments, which could stand to siphon money from the local public school district.
Members of Unite Here Local 737 and Local 362, two labor unions that collectively represent thousands of workers at Disney World, have knocked on over 67,000 doors in Orange County in recent months to raise awareness of the lawsuits — which they cheekily refer to as “the cost of magic.” Canvassers have collected more than 5,000 petitions from community members, urging Disney to back down.
According to Orange County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the nation, the school district has set aside $119 million for potential legal settlements, should Disney — and other plaintiffs who have sued over property taxes — settle or win their court cases.
Clinton McCracken, a middle school art teacher and president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, said the district has cited this $119 million as a “contributing factor” to the district’s decision to offer a less-than-one–percent raise for public school teachers this year. The district has since “improved” that proposal, per McCracken.
Florida ranks 50th in the nation for average teacher pay, as many teachers say their colleagues are picking up second jobs just to make ends meet.
“Students see their own teachers having to work two to three jobs, so after they leave work, they then go to a second job, having to go and bag groceries at the grocery store, or some even go and work at Disney themselves,” said Ladara Royal, a high school, college and career specialist, speaking at a press conference in College Park Monday morning, where he was flanked by Disney World workers and union leaders.
“Regardless of the many Master’s degrees and the Master’s and the Doctorials that they have, we still cannot afford to live in Orlando or Orange County,” Royal lamented.
Repeating history
Historically, Disney has sued the county property appraiser’s office and tax collector’s office year after year for just over a decade, arguing that the county has handed them “excessive” property tax assessments. In some of these cases, Disney has settled, winning itself millions of dollars in refunds.
Last December, the multibillion-dollar entertainment company filed another dozen lawsuits over property tax assessments for various Disney World properties, including Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and several of its resorts. Some of these properties are valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, according to WKMG.
“Disney has the right to file a lawsuit, but they don’t have to,” said Chared Aguirre, an organizer with the labor union Unite Here Local 737, which represents roughly 18,000 workers at Disney World. “A company like Disney could also look around at the community where they are based and choose to respect our needs,” she added.
“Disney could look around Orange County, which their theme parks have called home for over 50 years, and where Disney’s presence has marked our infrastructure and economy and community, and they could decide that our public schools, our students and our teachers need money more than they do.”
Making tough choices
Dr. Maria Vazquez, superintendent for the Orange County school district, told reporters in Junet hat if Disney’s property tax settlements end up costing the district less than $119 million, the district’s “goal” is to put the remaining dollars back towards teacher salaries.
McCracken welcomed that commitment, but reiterated Monday that although the district has offered a slightly higher raise for teachers this next year, after returning to the bargaining table last week, the district’s current proposal to raise health insurance costs for school staff would ultimately still result in a pay cut. The district has argued that its ability to absorb rising health insurance costs is “no longer sustainable.”
“What is the use of health insurance if educators avoid care because they can’t afford to use it?” he asked. “Our teachers love serving students in Orange County. They chose this profession because they believe in the promise of public education, but too many are leaving because they can’t afford to stay any longer.”
Starting teacher pay in Orange County is $50,000, while school psychologists’ base pay begins at $58,000, according to district documents.
McCracken noted that several factors have limited the district’s ability to offer a more generous pay increase for educators, including available state funding, declines in student enrollment — which is tied to state funding — and property tax lawsuits filed by major corporations like the Walt Disney Co.
“We can’t continue to blame everything on Tallahassee,” McCracken said.
The district has prepared a one-mill referendum for the 2026 ballot this year to renew a tax first established in 2010 to help fund the public school system. The tax represents $1 of every $1,000 of the taxable value of a property. It has been renewed every four years over the last 15 years.
“Every other large district in Florida uses their referendum funding to increase educator pay,” McCracken said. Orange County Public Schools, however, does not.
Instead the district uses some of the revenue generated from that tax to fund salaries of new positions, as well as field trips, coaches, and charter schools. “Recruiting and retaining great teachers requires more than words, it requires action,” McCracken said.
“These kids deserve better”
Workers at Disney World, meanwhile, are standing in solidarity with local teachers and the public school system. Forrest King, a server at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and member of Unite Here Local 737, has joined the canvassing effort to spread the word about Disney’s lawsuits to those who call Orange County home.
“While I was out knocking doors, I met a grandmother that lived directly behind Chickasaw Elementary School,” said King, a son of a 35-year educator himself, referring to one of seven Orange County schools that are closing this year, due in part to budget concerns.
“She was the sole provider for her 6-year-old grandson that has autism,” King continued. “Every day she’s able to walk her grandson to school and walk him back to school from school, every single day. She expressed to me that she does not know where her grandson is going to be able to go to school because he cannot — because of his disabilities — be on a bus without her.”
The district earlier this year also announced cuts to school social worker positions in schools, mental health counselors, and the elimination of the district’s SAFE (Student Assistance and Family Empowerment) program, which historically served to help students facing a range of problems, from issues at home to mental health challenges.
“I have talked to a 97-year-old grandma, where she had to take in her grandkids because her daughter passed away,” said Thomas Nunez, a worker at Disney’s Pop Century resort and member of Unite Here Local 737, who has also joined the canvassing effort.
“She had to take her grandkids out of school to be homeschooled, because the kids don’t get one-on-one,” he recalled Monday. For Nunez, who has learning disabilities himself, the problem of ensuring enough specialized support for students with certain needs hit close to home.
“If I did not get one-on-one’s with teachers, I wouldn’t have been the only one in my family to get a high school diploma,” he said. “These kids deserve better.”
Disney World workers themselves will be bargaining a new union contract with the Mouse starting next year. Their last five-year contract was negotiated in 2023.
Although tax refunds for Disney would give the corporation more cushion for contract negotiations next year, affecting more than 40,000 unionized workers, Unite Here Local 737 political research director Ella Wood told Orlando Weekly, “We are not worried about Disney not having enough money to settle a good contract.”
“We think there is plenty of money to go around,” she added, pointing to the region’s booming tourism industry. “And we’re not interested in fighting other workers over crumbs.”
The Walt Disney Corporation, most recently, found it within itself to gift a $100,000 campaign contribution — or, political investment — to a political committee associated with Stephanie Murphy, a former U.S. House representative who’s running for Orange County mayor this year.
Disney briefly paused its campaign contributions in 2022 during a performative tussle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over an anti-LGBTQ+ law he championed, but resumed contributions in 2024.
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