Legislation would offer film industry incentives

Lawmakers debated a bill Tuesday that would enable the state to offer incentives to the film industry, to create more jobs for Nevadans and generate more spending within the state.

Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, a co-sponsor of AB150, said that film companies typically provide jobs with high wages and decent benefit packages, and that 30 other states offer incentives to attract the lucrative industry.

The California Legislature recently approved tax incentives for film and television projects, he told the Assembly Taxation Committee.

"It's not the huge, big-budget motion pictures where the money is being made, it's the smaller independent movies," Ohrenschall said. "And those folks are usually lured by favorable conditions."

To qualify for abatements, film companies would have to ensure that they would hire Nevadans for at least 30 percent of their labor force. Then the companies would be exempted from various special-use fees, such as those imposed for use of oversized vehicles.

But the bill was challenged by a lawmaker who has been a leader in an overhaul of tax abatements in efforts to get rid of unwarranted ones and generate more taxes for the state.

"This goes against everything I have been working for this session, for a lot of different reasons," said Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas. Kirkpatrick said the bill was too broad, and added that film companies typically bring their own employees, and the bill doesn't go far enough to ensure which jobs Nevadans would get.

Robin Holabird, former longtime director of the Nevada Film Office, said that despite the state's natural beauty and attractions such as Lake Tahoe, the state loses film contracts to Canada and New Mexico, both of which offer more incentives.

"New Mexico is allowed to lend money to movie projects," Holabird said. "We will never be able to do that, that's not part of our program."

Holabird said New Mexico loaned a film crew $15 million for three years to make a film, as long as 80 percent of the film crew was hired from New Mexico.

"We used to be one of the top ten in the nation (in attracting film companies). We're not anymore, and it's not going to improve," she added.

Kirkpatrick pointed out that Nevada's tax structure is more favorable than states such as New Mexico, and even though Nevada does not offer easy loans it is still competitive with other states.

"It's important to me that we get the correct information about how competitive we really are," Kirkpatrick said. "I don't know if we can afford in our state to give one more abatement, unless it created Nevada jobs."