Committee tables anti-film incentive bill

by Megan Kamerick, New Mexico Business Weekly.

The Labor and Human Resources Committee in the New Mexico House of Representatives has tabled House Bill 19, which proposed to kill the state’s film incentive program.

That effectively means it’s dead in the water. The vote was 5 to 4 along party lines, according to the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber had opposed the bill, but does support greater transparency in the film incentive program.

Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, has introduced a bill that would require the Economic Development Department to collect and track statistical information in order to assess the effectiveness of the film production tax credit. According to the fiscal impact report, the bill would formalize reporting and tracking requirements and allow for greater transparency.

About 60 people testified in opposition to HB19, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kintigh, R-Roswell, including Sandy Levinson, owner of Aquila Travel in Albuquerque, who said she employs 10 people with full benefits and that’s mostly due to the work her firm gets from the film industry. Getting rid of the tax incentive would kill her business, she said.

“I would, without a doubt, close my doors,” Levinson said.

Under the program, productions can get a 25 percent rebate on qualified expenditures in New Mexico after they submit their paperwork to the Taxation and Revenue Department following completion of filming.

Committee Chairman Miguel Garcia, D-Bernalillo, said he sees the impact of the industry every week in his South Valley district where film crews are often working. They eat in local restaurants and shop locally, he said. And his son has picked up jobs in the industry, after being laid off from a call center.

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NM paid out $181 million in film tax credits over nearly three years

by Trip Jennings

New Mexico can be found a lot on the big and little screen these days. Watch AMC’s critically acclaimed Breaking Bad, featuring two-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston, and there are the Sandias. It’s hard to tell, but, yep, there’s Galisteo in Legion, a thriller with a God-is-angry-with-humanity-so-here-comes-the-apocalypse storyline that was released earlier this year.

That steady activity of film and TV shoots is raising New Mexico’s profile in Hollywood as several films or TV series shot here have racked up Oscar and Emmy awards in recent years. But the bigger profile is also raising the amount of money New Mexico is paying out to film and TV productions through a controversial tax credit program.

Over the past 33 months, 118 film and TV productions were paid $181 million through the program, including $60 million this fiscal year, state documents show.

This year’s payout appears likely to eclipse the $61,464,418.56 New Mexico doled out last year. This year’s total –$60,519,012.63 — was through April 14, more than two months shy of June 30, the end of the fiscal year, documents show.

The film tax credit program is wearing a bigger bulls-eye these days as New Mexico’s lagging economy, and a strained state budget, add urgency to critics’ calls for an end to the program.

Citing pared-down state services, higher unemployment and forced state worker furlough days — most state workers took their fifth, and final, furlough day of the fiscal year Friday, opponents say 2010 isn’t the time to be handing out money.

“We’re cutting services, furloughing state employees. And we’re sending tens of millions of dollars to Hollywood. That ain’t right. It’s wrong,” said first-term Rep. Dennis Kintigh, R-Roswell.

Kintigh, along with two top Senate Democrats, has emerged as a vocal critic of the program, citing worries about the state paying an industry to do business here at a time when New Mexico is hurting.

“We’re told if we don’t provide these incentives they will pack up and leave. If that’s the case the industry doesn’t have any roots here,” Kintigh said. “We don’t do that for the newspapers or the TV business.”

Doing away with the program is short-sighted, advocates say. The tax credits go toward reimbursing a portion of money production companies already have spent here in New Mexico, not to subsidize Hollywood.

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New Mexico Casting Call: Crash Season 2

Ongoing Casting Call for New Mexico Film Industry

Listen up New Mexico. CRASH Season 2 is in full production in Albuquerque, and they're in big need of background/extras. If you've been wanting to get on set on a New Mexico production, this is your chance.

Crash Extras Casting is looking for extras, all ages, all ethnicities!!! Please submit your headshot and contact phone number. We are shooting from June to October. We have a need for people of European, African American, Middle Eastern and Asian descent for upcoming scenes. Location: Albuquerque, NM Compensation: $9 an hour, time and a half after 8 hours, no guarantee of hours.

email: crash2extras@yahoo.com
phone: (505) 771-4471