Second of two Nevada film tax credit bills passed by Senate committee

Nevada lawmakers advanced a plan to entice film studios to expand the Silver State’s presence on the silver screen in a bill hearing Thursday.

Senate Bill 220 – one of two bills in the Nevada Legislature that propose an expansion of the state’s film tax credit program – was voted out of the Legislature’s Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee after a roughly three-hour hearing on Thursday afternoon.

The bill asks for $98 million in annual transferable film tax credits worth $1.6 billion price over 18 years. Most of the production tax credits — $83 million — would be tied to building a film studio campus at the Harry Reid Research and Technology Park near Sunset Road and Durango Drive in southwest Las Vegas. The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Roberta Lange presented SB 220 with partners on the project, Southern California groups Birtcher Development and Manhattan Beach Studios Group.

Lange, D-Las Vegas, said the bill was a culmination of five years of policymaking work. One of the biggest elements of the project is an educational and vocational facility on site — a key point of pride for the former educator who sees the program overhaul as a way to attract new industries to the state.

“We need to turn this into an economy in Nevada that’s diversified and that we can take private investment and turn it into long-term educational and workforce infrastructure and create industries that will sustain our economy through uncertainty and change,” she said.

Bill presenters said construction on the 34-acre film studio project called Nevada Studios would reach more than $388.5 million in private investment and generate 3,000 construction jobs with a $676 million in economic output, according to estimates provided by economic development consultancy firm Camoin Associates.

When fully operational, Nevada Studios would generate 8,800 annual jobs with a $1.9 billion annual economic output. Total production spending could reach $9.8 billion over the life of the program, according to the Camoin report.

The bill also includes $15 million annually available transferable tax credits for productions not associated with the Nevada Studios project.

Lange also presented an amendment to the bill adding the Creative Technology Initiative, a research and development organization that she proposed as a public-private partnership.

The organization would focus on “innovation and commercialization” of technologies that could be used in the aerospace, defense, healthcare technology and video game development industries. The idea is modeled after University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, a university-affiliated research center that also gets federal funding support.

Proponents of the bill said it would have a significant impact on the state. Rosemary Brock, founder of the technology company EISC Lab Data Automation, said the bill thinks of economic development not as diversification, but as an expansion of symbiotic relationships. She highlighted how the bill could drive innovation in immersive technologies.

“There’s been a lot of talk about diversifying Nevada’s economy, but I would suggest a different lens,” Brock said. “Not diversification but a symbiotic expansion of Nevada’s already existing and masterful strengths.”

The report proejcted the general fund’s return on investment would be 38 cents for every tax dollar in credits. The total new taxes collected for the general fund would be about $607 million.

The report also projects that “screen-related tourism,” or the tourism induced by the new industry in the state and from on-site studio tours and the Creative Technologies Initiative could add another 64 cents return on a tax dollar investment, bringing the total to $1.02 return on investment to the state’s general fund.

Senators unanimously passed SB 220 out of committee without recommendation at the end of the hearing. Chair Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, told committee members the bill will be heard in the Senate Finance Committee, as well.

In the Las Vegas hearing room — where the hearing was videoconferenced from Carson City — union members from the construction union Laborers Local 872 wearing matching orange shirts came to shout out their support for the development project. The studio already has a project labor agreement, and Lange emphasized her support for unions throughout the hearing.

Others urged legislators to avoid allocating limited state funds to developing a private industry. Brian Wallace, vice president of the Nevada State Education Association and a Carson City teacher, said the bill asks for too much of the state’s money

“Very little of what was said today can materialize without optimal investment in our students first,” Wallace said.

A similar effort to tie film studio infrastructure at a different site to the state’s film tax credit program, Assembly Bill 238, was heard in the Assembly Revenue Committee on Feb. 27 and passed out of committee on April 3.

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.