Gov. Deval Patrick wants to cut funding for the state’s zoos by $4 million this year, but he’s willing to spend far more than that on a single movie that will start filming next month at the Franklin Park Zoo.
Zoos vs. movies: It’s an interesting juxtaposition of the state’s spending priorities.
Patrick last month vetoed $4 million of a $6.5 million state appropriation for the Franklin Park and Stone Zoos. Zoo officials said the spending cut would force them to shut down and euthanize as many as 20 percent of their animals. (The Patrick administration then accused the zoos of spreading “incendiary information.”) Zoo officials appealed to lawmakers to restore the funds, and some lawmakers have vowed to override the governor’s veto.
At the same time, the Franklin Park Zoo stands to reap $325,000 in location fees from a movie scheduled to start filming there next month. The movie stars Kevin James as a zookeeper who gets love advice from the animals in his care. The voices of the animals will be supplied by several big-name actors, including Adam Sandler, Sylvester Stallone, and Cher.
The movie’s budget isn’t known, but it’s probably a safe bet that it will be at least $26 million. According to press reports, that”s what James’s last movie in Massachusetts — Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which was filmed primarily at the Burlington Mall — cost to produce.
Under the state’s film tax credit law, the producers of the zookeeper movie can apply for tax credits equal to 25 percent of whatever they spend here. For discussion purposes, let’s say they spend the whole $26 million here. They would then qualify for tax credits worth $6.5 million, the equivalent of what the zoos were looking for from the state for this year.
The zookeeper film will provide significant economic benefits to the state, as the producers spend money on employees, food, hotel stays, transportation, location fees, and even building a set at the zoo itself. The zoo in the film will even be called the Franklin Park Zoo of Boston, so there may be a boost to tourism when the film comes out in 2010.
But the zoos also provide significant economic benefits to the state; they employ 165 people, they make purchases in the surrounding community, and they bring hundreds of thousands of tourists into Boston from outside the city and outside the state. They also contribute significantly to the quality of life here.
Supporters of the film tax credit say the state needs to spend money to generate economic activity. Supporters of the zoos make the same argument. Which priority is more important?
