Kentucky economic development secretary pauses film tax credit approvals (2025)

Kentucky is “pausing” its film incentives program for review after concerns were expressed by the board charged with doling out the $75 million in tax credits.

Economic Development Secretary Jeff Noel announced the move in the middle of the April 24 monthly meeting of the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

Noel said that the Kentucky Entertainment Incentive program was about to hit its legislatively mandated cap of available tax credits for the remainder of the calendar year, if projects requested for April had been approved. Since the $75 million cap has been imposed, the program has not met the limit, according to the cabinet.

“Since the program was placed within the Cabinet for Economic Development, we have seen considerable interest from production teams interested in filming in the commonwealth,” Noel said in a statement to the Herald-Leader. “The growth of the Kentucky Entertainment Incentive is due in large part to great collaboration from all the local film commissions and those passionate about growing this industry in Kentucky. ... It was clear the applications to be considered would exceed the cap as early as the April or May Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority meeting.”

Through March, about $50 million in potential entertainment tax credits had been approved for calendar year 2025 for 38 projects.

“Let’s make sure that the application of limited credits go towards the best projects that meet the goals and objectives the state of Kentucky and fully benefits the state of Kentucky better than perhaps the other,” Noel said in the board meeting.

“So we are going to pause consideration of any additional programs for a period of time. This allows staff ... to listen to the comments and some of the issues that have been raised by this very good board over the last couple of weeks.”

Changes coming to film incentives

Noel said this also would allow the cabinet to look at the legislation passed earlier in the year by the General Assembly to establish a Kentucky film office and to re-evaluate the existing program’s benefits and compare it to other states.

He said the program may need additional guidelines and policies or even regulations.

“We need to find a way to make sure that the objectives of the state are fully met, and that could include some sort of application to make sure that awards go to everyone across the state, awards could be determined in terms of how much impact will they have relative to actual dollars being spent with ... Kentucky residents, Kentucky businesses like hotels and catering versus what’s the percentage of that compared to necessary, important expenses above the line that includes fees, producer fees and others. ... Because the intent of this is to build an industry,” Noel said.

He did not give a timeline for restarting the film incentives.

“We will share information about any changes to the KEI program as they are finalized, and we look forward to continuing to work with projects that align with Team Kentucky’s objectives and benefit our residents,” Noel said in a statement.

The economic development cabinet’s approval role will be sunsetting anyway: Senate Bill 1, passed in March, will establish the Kentucky Film Office and a new seven-member Kentucky Film Leadership Council, which will be appointed by the governor, to approve the qualifying projects rather than the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority board.

The cabinet will continue to do economic analysis of each project.

Board, Kentucky filmmakers express concerns

In March, several board members expressed concern over some applications for incentives after they were contacted by Soozie Eastman of the Louisville Film Office and 502 Film, and by Merry-Kay Poe of Unbridled Films and Misdee Wrigley Miller of Wrigley Media.

In emails to the board, the Kentucky filmmakers said that one out-of-state company with “questionable business practices” has received a disproportionate share of the incentives: “The Kentucky Entertainment Incentive is being misused by the company currently known as Europa Media Internazionale Ltd. (Wy.), formerly known as Stargazer Global Media LLC.”

The number listed for the Prospect, Ky., office of Stargazer Corp. was not working. No contact for Europa was immediately available.

Poe alleged in her email that the company had submitted “a number projects under 125 LLCs since 2022” and that many had inflated expenses “that may constitute fraud.”

Poe and Eastman declined to comment; Miller was not immediately available.

The Kentucky filmmakers asked the board to halt all applications under the Europa Media/Stargazer umbrella “until these questions are duly answered.”

Some members of the board attempted in March to question the applications but were shut down at the time by Noel, who said, “I feel like, as the secretary, I need to make clear that, in my opinion, which is what I’m required to do for every one of these projects, I believe ... that these projects deserve moving forward and should commence in accordance with the statutes, and candidly, in accordance with an awful lot of folks across the state who fully support this program.”

Noel said the projects’ expenses were fully vetted by cabinet staff and that questions by the board to the contrary would be impugning their work.

Following those statements, the board voted to approve further incentives, with only one board member, Chad Miller, CEO of Locknet in Nicholasville, objecting.

Miller was the sole opposing vote on all the film incentives packages approved in March and almost all in February.

In March, Miller said that he “fundamentally” does not approve of the program, which he said he does not believe “is in the best interest of the taxpayers” as currently designed. He said that his research indicates one entity had received almost half of the incentives awarded over nine separate projects.

“The lack of transparency really troubles me,” Miller said in March.

Miller declined an interview request.

This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 8:47 AM.