A fiscal watchdog is raising questions over $5 million in state funding dedicated to a Holocaust museum planned in downtown Orlando.
Florida TaxWatch included funding for the Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity in its annual "budget turkey" list. That's a list the organization puts out each year as Gov. Ron DeSantis considers what to veto in the budget produced by Florida lawmakers.
The turkey report flagged the Orlando museum on a list of cultural facilities that shouldn't receive the money budgeted by state lawmakers. It notably was one of five Holocaust education-related items deemed a turkey by the organization's analysts.
But the report makes clear that it's the process — rather than the merit of the projects — that concerns fiscal hawks. The Department of State has a competitive cultural grant process, and the Legislature provided $32 million for that fund. But lawmakers also separately budgeted nearly $29 million for specific cultural institutions, including the Orlando museum.
"Most of these projects will receive much more than any of the ones that went through the process," a report states. "Several of these projects have been vetoed in prior years."
The $5 million budgeted for the Holocaust museum actually represents a fraction of what Central Florida lawmakers wanted. Sen. Linda Stewart, an Orlando Democrat, and Rep. David Smith, a Winter Springs Republican, requested $25 million for the project, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The project hopes to break ground later this year.
Museum officials plan to showcase the stories of survivors of Nazi concentration camps, many using interactive displays and incorporating AI technology.
"What we are planning to build in downtown Orlando is a living narrative of the voices of people who lived through the Holocaust," the website for the museum reads. "It will serve to honor those we lost, to reflect on the power of stories as a legacy that we will always carry, and as a reminder of why we must stand up to antisemitism and prejudice today."
Besides the Orlando museum, TaxWatch also marked several other line items connected to the Holocaust as turkeys.
The turkey list also includes a $750,000 grant to The Florida Holocaust Museum, which already operates in St. Petersburg, for preserving Holocaust survivor testimonies and artifacts" and $375,000 for the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center in Dania Beach for front door security enhancement.
The group also spotlighted $1 million budgeted as part of the Legislature's "sprinkle list" for the Jewish Federation Sarasota Manatee's Holocaust Education Center, and $286,250 for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation's The Last Ones effort "documenting the legacy of the last Holocaust survivors."
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