A state funding request for the city of Orlando’s Pulse memorial project managed to avoid Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ dreaded veto list as the Republican governor gave final approval to a state spending plan for the next year.
The FY 2025-26 state budget, approved Tuesday (less than 24 hours before it was supposed to take effect), totals $117.4 billion, after $567 million’s worth of vetoes issued by DeSantis. Vetoes include requested funding for dozens of local and state projects, but a $394,321 request for the development of a permanent memorial for Pulse victims and survivors in Orlando (surprisingly or not) emerged unscathed.
The local funding request, submitted by Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani and Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, will help support the construction of a permanent memorial to commemorate the 49 victims of the 2016 shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in addition to shooting survivors and victims’ families.
“The funding will be used to plan, design, and construct a place of solemn reflection at the site of the former Pulse nightclub,” the funding request reads. “The memorial will be a place where the victims’ families, survivors, first responders, and the community can go to honor, unite, and remember this heartbreaking moment in
our city’s and our state’s history.”
A permanent memorial has been years in the making, but was stalled due to a botched effort by the nonprofit OnePulse Foundation, founded shortly after the shooting before dissolving in disgrace in late 2023. The nonprofit, founded by one of the club’s former owners, had requested its own state funds through lawmakers several years ago, much of which the nonprofit was later forced to return after financial mismanagement.
“Unfortunately, not all the money was returnable as the original appropriation request had flexibility to it,” Eskamani explained to Orlando Weekly in a phone call Tuesday. But at least $394,321 of it was indeed returned, she said, “and so that’s what this money is.”
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After OnePulse signaled it would not continue its effort to build a memorial, the city of Orlando decided to take up the project instead. So now it’s the city that will get the state money, on the condition that it’s spent according to a plan submitted by lawmakers as part of the funding request.
Per that request, the city “will agree to return any unused state funds to the State of Florida if there is a material failure to meet deliverables or performance measures as provided in a grant agreement between the Department and the City of Orlando.”
As it is, the city has made demonstrable progress in coming up with a memorial design in collaboration with community stakeholders, and expects to begin construction next summer. The city bought the former Pulse nightclub property in late 2023 to house the memorial, and is expected to choose a contractor to build the memorial sometime this month, with an estimated completion date for late 2027.
Most of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, which occurred on Latin Night, were LGBTQ+ people of color. Many were young, with their whole lives ahead of them, and as many in the community say today, “just wanted to dance” the night they were fatally shot. DeSantis, who has been criticized for promoting and approving several anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant laws in recent years, commemorated the ninth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in a statement last month, but notably omitted any mention of LGBTQ+ or Latin communities.
Eskamani, who saw five of her other local funding requests vetoed by DeSantis this year, said she believes the DeSantis administration agreed to approve the Pulse request in part to avoid a fight with the LGBTQ+ community, which has stood up against the governor before.
“I suspect that it was a fight the governor didn’t want to have right now, because we definitely would have made it into a fight if necessary,” she told Orlando Weekly.
She also believes that since the state allocated funds for this project before, it only made sense for them to do so again. “This is money that has already been allocated to a specific purpose, and I think vetoing it would have just created another politically motivated opportunity for the governor to highlight how bigoted he is. And he’s already doing that in the context of his attacks on immigration.”
The lack of a permanent memorial for Pulse survivors and loved ones to visit at their discretion (without having to pay an admission fee, as OnePulse had pitched) has left many bitter. Particularly after the OnePulse Foundation raised millions of dollars from public and private donors to build one.
The city of Orlando has estimated the cost of its planned Pulse memorial to come out to roughly $12 million. The city plans to dedicate $7.5 million in general revenue funds itself, and recently got a commitment from the Orange County government for an additional $5 million in county funds. According to Eskamani and Smith’s state funding requests, the approved state appropriation will go specifically to construction and design costs, not staff salaries, benefits or consultation costs.
“I’m grateful to the Florida Legislature for making good on its commitment to provide funding and support for the long-overdue Pulse Nightclub Memorial in Orlando,” Sen. Smith told Orlando Weekly in a statement, while denouncing DeSantis’ vetoes as “short-sighted.”
“Ultimately, it is my hope that the memorial brings peace to the families and survivors of this horrific attack and ensures the 49 angels will never be forgotten,” Smith said.
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This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2025.
