LANSING – The Michigan Senate on Tuesday altered its general government budget to spend $50 million on film incentives in the state, a $25 million General Fund increase from what Governor Rick Snyder had proposed in his budget in February.

Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) said he was pleased with the changes, especially the film incentive money (last term he also helped to increase funding to $50 million for film incentives).

“I just think that it’s really important that in order to sustain the industry today, $50 million is not the maximum. To me, it’s the minimum,” he told reporters after session.

He recalled a new incentive package that had been created about a year and a half ago for the film industry and though he could not immediately say how successful that’s been, he expects the numbers “are much better than the numbers from the old program, and a lot of people are still operating under the old program’s paradigm.”

He continued: “Once we get some pencil to paper, people will believe, I believe, that this is a much more important industry than maybe they thought just a year or two ago.”

Of the changes made through the amendment, proposed by Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park), Richardville said it was not the Senate’s intent to shortchange any programs that would result in detrimental losses.

“But we’re not done trimming fat. We’re not done taking a look for opportunities,” Richardville said. “I think before it’s all said and done … we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

Sen. John Pappageorge (R-Troy), chair of the Senate Appropriations General Government Subcommittee, had urged defeat of the amendment on the basis that some programs would be fighting for the $50 million appropriation. He told members on the floor that the film credits discussion would continue and that it was not something that would be resolved during session.

The way Pappageorge had rolled up that particular piece of the General Government budget, unrolled by the amendment, he said funding for renaissance zone reimbursements to libraries, additional workers for the auditor general and potentially even revenue sharing could suffer. It was not immediately clear if the extra $25 million General Fund would be taken from the General Fund overall or if it would be taken by grabbing parts of General Fund appropriations to specific line items for a grand total of $25 million.

Upon reconsideration of the amendment, it found support from 23 senators (it was not a record roll call vote) as opposed to its previous narrow defeat of 18-17 (two senators did not vote).

As for the appropriations in the amendment for pre-engineering and community ventures, at least, he said they were programs directed toward bigger cities like Grand Rapids and Detroit, “where there are people that could be gifted in engineering but don’t know it,” he said. “So they’re not real big in terms of the budget.”

He said discussions will continue, particularly on the pre-college engineering program, as to whether that should be expanded to include other math and science centers across the state in a way that’s “more equitable.”

“This is the first major step in the budget getting complete, so I consider it to be a very, very positive step,” Richardville said.