Keep Film In Washington

As most of you have heard by now, SB 6027, the bill to increase funding and extend the sunset on the Washington state film incentive, was not included in the Legislature's final budget. In fact, the only tax preferences included were those that were set to expire.  

We found this year’s legislative session to be extremely challenging — with a Republican-led Senate requiring no new revenue and a Democratic House calling for the closure of over $350 million in tax preferences. However, we did raise the profile of our industry in Olympia with a surge of grassroots support led by the entertainment unions in conjunction with business partners throughout the state.

Washington Filmworks will be regrouping to strategize our next steps. Certainly, this will include outreach to the greater creative community and looking to strengthen ties with our legislative allies. The incentive is not set to expire until 2017, so we will continue to support projects that want to shoot in Washington and carefully record their economic impact. SAG-AFTRA will continue to support these efforts locally and nationally; these are the jobs that provide the wages and benefits union performers rely on. Thank you all for your time and energy these last six months. The work we all did only made us stronger as a community.

This item was originally featured in the September 2015 local newsletter.