Rep. Ted Davis Jr. notes a miscommunication almost left the state's film grant penniless in the coming fiscal year

RALEIGH – The state’s film grant program almost suffered a devastating blow due to what one legislator is calling a miscommunication.

As 2019-20 fiscal year budget negotiations continue in the state capital, Rep. Ted Davis Jr., R-New Hanover, said members of the House of Representatives' appropriations committee were given misinformation by the N.C. Department of Commerce that the grant program – which gets $31 million in funding a year – still had $67,380,519 sitting unused.

That prompted the chairs of the committee to reportedly remove the grant’s upcoming $31 million in funding from the proposed budget altogether.

“They thought that if it is just sitting there unused, the grant didn’t need more funding this new fiscal year,” Davis said Monday.

In reality, the grant doesn’t have $67 million in available funding.

When Davis was notified of the plan to excise next year’s film funding, he said he met with the committee to help explain how the grant program works.

“Over half of the available funding is already encumbered for projects,” Davis said. “It is not just sitting there to be used.”

Per its guidelines, the funding is only available to eligible projects after production is completed and a full independent audit is conducted. Then, the productions have three years to file a full report of the project with the state.

Three Wilmington-shot projects have applied for a piece of the funding based on their local spending – Hulu’s “Reprisal” (requested $2.3 million), the feature film “Words on Bathroom Walls” ($2.3 million) and “Swamp Thing” ($4.99 million for its pilot episode). The latter production’s recently scaled-back episode order will likely affect the additional $16 million it requested for the remainder of its first season.

Davis said Commerce staff told him approximately $35,140,683 of the funding is already earmarked for projects.

But that doesn’t take into consideration the five additional projects Davis said he was told are in various stages of negotiations and contracts, with two others floating around. It is not clear if “Swamp Thing” or “Reprisal’s” upcoming full season production are among those projects.

With support from Speaker Tim Moore, Davis said he was given documentation the funding has been put back in the budget proposal.

But he said the potentially disruptive misscommunication has led to compromises and confusion.

“It’s hard enough dealing with the people in Raleigh who don’t favor the industry, and it makes it worse when they can sit there and say, “I told ya. It’s not being used,’” he said. “It paints a false picture.”

Additionally, the close call for the grant forced Davis to table his efforts to lobby for more annual funding for the program.

“As a result of being able to put it back in, at this point, there will not be any additional amount included in the House budget,” he said.

That doesn’t mean the Senate can’t insert language for more funding when it gets a crack at the budget in the coming weeks. But Davis would prefer the support for an expanded funding profile came from a bigger voice.

“I am very disappointed that Gov. [Roy] Cooper has not weighed in on this,” Davis said. “He has not come out publicly supporting more funding for film. If he would get on board, we could look at this more when it goes to the Senate.”

The governor’s office hasn’t been completely silent on the matter of film. In his proposed budget, language was included that would increase the amount a television series can earn per season from $12 million to $16 million (more in line with “Swamp Thing’s” request), and increase the maximum grant award for feature films from $7 million to $10 million.

In a statement late Monday, Jamal Little, spokesman for Cooper, pushed back on the charge the governor hasn't shown his support.

"Gov. Cooper has continued to be a strong proponent of the film industry and his fight to repeal HB2 along with his proposed budget increase show that," Little wrote in an email. "Instead of making excuses, Republican legislative leaders should restore film incentives in their budget.”

Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com.