Budget conference: $1M locked in for Black history museum in St. Augustine

Funding for the project has been closed out.

The Legislature is ready to build a museum honoring Black history.

House and Senate negotiators agreed to direct $1 million toward Phase 1 of the Florida Museum of Black History, which will be established in Northeast Florida. Sen. Tom Leek pressed colleagues to locate the museum in his home district in St. Augustine earlier in the Legislative Session.

“The story of Florida cannot be told without telling the story of Black Floridians. This bill does just that,” Leek said on the floor of the Senate.

While the project won unanimous approval, the funding had to be negotiated in budget conferences in an extended Session this week. But both the House and Senate included the funding, and the last offers from the House Transportation and Economic Development Budget Subcommittee and the Senate Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Committee showed discussions closed out.

That means while plenty of issues were unresolved before budgets were bumped to the next level of appropriators, the funding for the museum is locked in. READ FULL ARTICLE