MN Film Board Receives 10 Milllion!

From the MN FILM BOARD Press Release

May 23. 2013

Snowbate Incentive Funded at $10 Million

The Omnibus Jobs bill, which includes funding for Snowbate at $10M, was signed into law today by Governor Mark Dayton.  

Bill language also increases the maximum reimbursement percentage to 25% and moves Minnesota Film and TV operations and Snowbate program oversight to DEED, the Department of Employment and Economic Development. 

So many of you were part of the effort to get Snowbate funded at a competitive level -- thanks to everyone in the Minnesota production community, including members of Local IATSE 490, the Teamsters, SAG-AFTRA, AICP, AICE, our board of directors and people from the community at large -- success, as they say, has many mothers.  

Our office would also like to thank the legislators who were instrumental in driving the legislation through the House and Senate: Senators bill authors Bonoff, Cohen, Tomassoni, Dziedzic and Miller  and House authors Representatives Lesch, Davids, Lillie, Hausman and Melin.  We also received a lot of support from Representative Tim Mahoney, who chaired the House Jobs Committee and the Jobs Conference Committee, and again Senator Dave Tomassoni, the Senate Jobs Conference Committee Chair, who fought hard to maintain the Senate position on our funding.

And a very large thank you to Senator Richard Cohen for his unflagging support of the film industry in our state.  This year's level of funding is in large part due to his dogged determination that this was the year we were going to get it done.  We also want very much to thank Governor Mark Dayton and his staff for their staunch support of Snowbate and other job creation initiatives. 

The Snowbate Task Force meets next week to forge revisions and updates to the current Snowbate Guidelines that reflect the new statute provisions.  Those guidelines will be posted once our grant contract with DEED is signed early in July.