Ryan Nicol
House negotiators have proposed a $500,000 allocation for the Orlando memorial and museum set to honor the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.
That latest number comes from the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations committee. But Senate lawmakers would still have to agree. The latest Senate offer sits at just $250,000.
Both numbers are well below the original request from Rep. Holly Raschein (HB 3615). Raschein had asked for $2 million in a budget request submitted back in November. The project is estimated to cost about $35 million in total.
Last year’s Pulse ask stemmed from a $1 million allotment to help fund a similar memorial for the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
Three Democratic lawmakers from Central Florida — Sen. Linda Stewart and Reps. Anna Eskamani and Carlos Guillermo Smith — sought an equivalent $1 million for the Pulse memorial and museum.
In 2019, the Legislature settled on allocating $500,000 for the project. Another $500,000 this year would bring it in line with the Stoneman Douglas memorial.
But the Senate would still have to move. Last Session also saw wrangling over the potential funding as various offers were traded. At one point, the Senate offered $245,000. The House also put forward $0 for the memorial at one juncture.
The Pulse museum will aim to honor those affected by the attack and will also contain an education center.
Then entire site will cover approximately 3.5 acres with a target opening date of June 2022.
Several members of Congress — including U.S. Reps. Val Demings, Stephanie Murphy and Darren Soto — have introduced legislation to designate the site as an independent National Memorial. That effort would allow the memorial to be independently operated, rather than being overseen by the U.S. National Park Service.
The attack at Pulse nightclub ended with 49 people killed and another 58 wounded. It is the second-deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, trailing only the 2017 attack at a concert in Las Vegas which killed 58 people.
