The Assembly’s Arts and Entertainment Committee unanimously passed the California Film and Television Job Retention Act on Tuesday in Sacramento, Assemblyman Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, said Tuesday.

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Assembly Bill 1839 is “about keeping families together and keeping jobs in California,” said Wilk, the bill’s principal co-author. “As a member of the Arts Committee, I will continue to be an advocate for this job saving measure that is vital for our economy.”

The California Film and Television Job Retention and Promotion Act extends the incentive program for an additional five years; includes a 5 percent increase in the tax credit for filming done outside the Los Angeles Zone; offers a 25 percent credit for television shows relocating to California in the first year and modifies the requirement from 75 percent of production days having to occur in California to 75 percent of principal photography days having to occur in California, all in order to ensure more jobs are created here.

AB 1839 will now move to the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

Wilk, Assemblyman Steve Fox, D-Palmdale, Sen. Steve Knight, R-Antelope Valley, and Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, were among the bill’s supporters.

California has lost $33 billion in film production to other states in the past 10 years, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said at Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting.

“As a result of California’s excessive regulations, high taxes and erroneous water policies, other states have successfully lured film and television production and aerospace companies from California and the Central Valley has become a dust bowl,” according to Antonovich’s motion to the board.

Under the existing California Film and Television Tax Credit Program, which was passed by state legislature in 2009, the California Film Commission is authorized to allocate $100 million in tax credits each fiscal year through 2016-17.

If AB 1839 is passed, tax credits would be extended to apply to $100 million in qualified expenditures for motion pictures, to music scoring and editing expenditures and to television series that relocate to California, based on the number of years they have received tax credits in the state, according to the Legislative Counsel’s digest of the bill.

The state may be facing a decline in the film industry, but production in the Santa Clarita Valley remains strong, said Jason Crawford, economic development manager for the city of Santa Clarita.

Santa Clarita officials created a website that focuses on the local impact of film and television.

“Runaway production is a huge problem for California,” he said. “Other states luring our TV shows and movies out of California hurts everybody in the state. We in Santa Clarita have been lucky enough to see our numbers increasing while the whole state’s numbers (are) decreasing.”

Perry Smith (@theprs1) contributed to this report.

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