Commentary by Randy Davidson, Georgia Entertainment
The legislative session ended in a flurry of dramatic activity and political maneuvering. While all eyes were on the budget, it passed with ease with only 2 down votes in total. The $36.1 billion fiscal 2025 state budget includes raises for state employees, teachers and nearly $50 million in more funding for pre-kindergarten programs.
House Bill 1180 focused on the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act did not make it through. As we have written, the bill included several adjustments to the current effective 30% incentive, but in the end it was the language around the cap that will be blamed for HB 1180 not making it to the Governor’s desk.
Georgia remains the best state for productions and commercials. On the growth front, the incentive gets better with time in the sense that the benefit is spreading to all of Georgia and penetrating other areas of the state’s creative industries like music, gaming development, art and digital production.
Looking at the 2024 session overall, it showed the power of those that have worked so hard to keep Georgia’s stance on the creative industries strong. There has never been a time where we have had more support for incentives to support growing job opportunities in the creative industries for Georgians. In this session, losing the credit or coming off the amount the state has historically committed to encourage direct spending was never in play.
I commend the effort of HB 1180 and want to mention the incredible courage and effort of Rep. Kasey Carpenter and Rep. Shaw Blackmon. I think there are brilliant portions of the bill that will no doubt appear again. HB 1180 was Representative Carpenter’s bill and Rep. Blackmon was co-chair of the committee that spent all of 2023 reviewing the film credit and other credits. These items will arise again and probably as early as next year – ways to “guardrail” the credit to appease those against having an uncapped credit, other ways to reach the 30% (more rural inclusion, using Georgia music, etc.) and adjustments to minimum spend to qualify.
Where do we go from here? Strikes, pandemic pauses and the general nature of the industry warrants a settlement on the overarching theme of a 30% credit. I am hopeful that we can provide stability around the core of the incentive and improve the Act in sessions to come.
There’s precedent for leadership to have a “handshake” agreement on big topics like this and leave the core alone. In terms of the film credit, we could set the stance of the 30% credit aside and address topics that others have prioritized like expanding rural participation, diversity considerations, smoothing out the accounting/auditing workflow, supporting other disciplines of the creative industries, etc.
Another session has passed. There’s more work to be done, but overall, Georgia is still the best place in the country for filmmakers and still the best place for creatives to thrive.
