Iowa ran into expensive and embarrassing problems in its efforts to support movie production, but it isn’t alone – other states also have seen the glamour fall away.

Incentives for Hollywood have been scaled back in Wisconsin, capped in Rhode Island, suspended in New Jersey, Iowa and Kansas and scheduled to expire in Arizona.

As some states continue to expand and introduce subsidies, programs around the country face allegations of corruption, doubts about job-creating power and, most of all, questions about affordability.

“We are starting to stem the tide of state government pandering to the film industry,” said Bill Ahern, policy director for the Washington-based Tax Foundation, which advocates lower taxes.

In the last five years, $3.5 billion in tax credits, rebates and other financial assistance have gone to makers of films, television shows and commercials, according to a calculation by the foundation. In the next fiscal year, states will face $72 billion in budget deficits, the National Conference of State Legislatures estimated.

The subsidies began in Louisiana in 1992 and today are offered by 42 states. A shakeout will halve that number in the next decade as lawmakers conclude they can’t sustain funding, according to Larry Brownell, head of the Association of Film Commissioners International in Redondo Beach, Calif., which represents every state with incentives except Massachusetts.

Iowa’s program covered up to 50 percent of costs until it was put on hold after an investigation by Attorney General Tom Miller led to charges in February against two movie producers and a former film office head.

The producers padded their expenses with $900 shovels and $225 brooms, and the ex-director failed to verify the eligibility of applicants for incentives, prosecutors said. Trials are set to begin in December. The probe was expanded last month after state Auditor David Vaudt said up to $32 million – or 80 percent – of credits had been issued improperly.

Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder wants to curb the largesse in his state. A Michigan state agency found the price of the program – which covers as much as 42 percent of local expenses – exceeds the economic activity generated. The jobs created in 2009 cost the state about $193,000 each, the agency estimated.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, suspended incentives covering 20 percent of costs on July 1 as part of his austerity push, sending producers of NBC’s “Law & Order SVU” to New York. In Arizona, lawmakers didn’t extend the 30 percent credit running out at the end of next month. Kansas shelved its credit, also for 30 percent of costs, for 2009 and 2010. Rhode Island two years ago capped its program at $15 million annually. Wisconsin last year slashed the amount the state can give out in any year to $500,000 from an unlimited sum.

Calling the incentives credits is misleading because they go beyond tax abatement, and beyond the film industry, said Robert Tannenwald, a former Boston Federal Reserve Bank vice president who studies the subsidies at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C.

In most states, unused credits can be returned for cash or sold to other businesses. A Connecticut nonprofit’s Freedom of Information request forced the state to identify companies that bought movie credits and used them to lower their tax bills. The list, made public last year, included Bank of America Corp., Wachovia Bank, Hershey Co., Comcast Inc., Provident Life & Casualty Insurance Co. and Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Co.

That’s “outrageous,” Tannenwald said. “There’s no reason for a government to finance a financial institution in such a circuitous way.”

In a recent report, Tannenwald wrote that incentives in 43 states cost $1.5 billion in 2009. “They don’t come close to paying for themselves,” he said.

Michigan illustrates the point, he said. It’s headed for a $1.5 billion deficit next fiscal year, according to government estimates, and its budget for film credits is $125 million.

“With that kind of money,” said Michigan State University economics professor Charles Ballard, “we could have a citrus industry in the Upper Peninsula.”