02/29/08 - News Reports From The Greenwich Time

Blue Sky Animation is pulling out of White Plains New York and to Connecticut, where the tax breaks are as high as a Horton the elephant's eye.

Benefits of deal remain unclear

By Brian Lockhart
Greenwich Time - Staff Writer

State lawmakers are questioning the Blue Sky deal following a report in Greenwich Time and The Advocate yesterday that the General Assembly unknowingly approved $15 million worth of annual digital animation tax credits tailored for Blue Sky Studios last year.

Additional details emerged yesterday about the state's behind-the-scenes bid to lure the renowned digital animator and its 300 employees from New York to Greenwich with tens of millions in film tax credits. It remains unclear, though, how thoroughly the state's effort to woo Blue Sky has been analyzed, and if it will pay off.

Jim Watson, spokesman for the state Department of Economic and Community Development, said the examination by his department, which is providing Blue Sky an $8 million low-interest loan, cannot be released because it involves confidential, proprietary information.

House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, has promised the company $10 million more in tax breaks. Many lawmakers this week said they thought last year they were voting on a generic bill creating a maximum, annual, transferable tax credit of $15 million to be split among digital animation studios with 200 or more full-time employees.

"In budget negotiations (the discussion) was always in terms of the entire film industry," House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, said yesterday. "Never was an individual company mentioned, ever."

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