Ending tax credit will send filming out of state

The film industry began in New Jersey when Thomas Edison developed motion picture technology in his West Orange laboratory. But a recommendation by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration may discourage the industry from continuing to film and produce movies in the state.
Despite positive study results, the state Economic Development Authority recommended ending the state tax credits given to film and digital media companies.
“Before there was Hollywood, there was Jersey,” said Chris Notarile, CEO and owner of Jersey City-based studio Blinky Productions Inc. But the end of this program — sidelined in the current fiscal year by Christie’s spending cuts — will deter major film studios from filming and producing in New Jersey, he said.
“Studios are going where the breaks are,” said Notarile, who wrapped filming earlier this month in Hackensack and Cranford for his second feature film. And investors also will be deterred, he said.
Funding for the Film and Digital Media tax credit program was suspended in the current fiscal year, with the Christie administration ordering a study of the program’s effectiveness. The New Jersey Institute of Technology, in Newark, released the results of the investigation in October; it recommended the program continue because “it paid for itself.”
But the EDA cited faulty logic in the report, which was “based on the hypothetical assumption that New Jersey’s entire film industry is entirely dependent on this tax credit, which is not a proven fact,” Assemblyman David W. Wolfe (R-Brick) said in a release.
In total, the state received $10.1 million in revenue from the film industry in 2009, but only $5.5 million of that revenue could be directly related to jobs created by the tax credit. With $10 million in credits issued by the state, the EDA contends New Jersey actually spent $4.5 million on the program.
The $15 million program, which began issuing credits in 2006, initially was to sunset in 2015.
The program did account for 913 jobs in 2009, with an average wage of $47,734.
“This is yet another short-sighted move to close a budget hole so that the governor can boast to his conservative base about how much money he is cutting. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring the long-term revenue and jobs this program creates, as well as the need of our out-of-work residents,” Assembly Budget Chair Louis Greenwald (D-Voorhees) said in a release.

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