I would like to answer Ken Eisen’s letter (“Movie tax incentives better in Massachusetts,” July 30) about film incentives.

I have been trying since 2010 to get a film bill passed in Augusta to make Maine’s film incentives competitive to bring the movies to Maine and bring investment and jobs that go along with those movies. I have been working with a man out of Hollywood and several here in Maine to bring in a $130million investment and 2,000 jobs that would go along with it.

The current bill is L.D. 1004 and has been carried over until the upcoming session.

What has stonewalled this bill is the fact that the fiscal note that is put on by the state shows the amount of money that could possibly be paid out without the concept of revenue coming in, but it has to be included in the budget bottom line. However, it is simple: for every $1 we get in, we pay out 25 cents.

The fiscal note process, however, does not allow us to do that. The proposed bill also has caps and pays out only on the below-the-line salaries, which eliminates stars’ and directors’ salaries. It also has stipulations about how much must be spent, what percentage must be spent in Maine and and what percentage of employees below the line must be from Maine.

Not having a decent incentive is the reason Maine is not on a competitive level with some other states, and we have lost countless movies and investments since 2010 because of this. We will give it another 100 percent try to get this bill passed this next session to move our state forward.

Rep. John Picchiotti

R-Fairfield