Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover) knows his work is cut out for him as the state Senate starts to work on the biennial North Carolina budget now that the state House has approved its spending version.

Lee, who co-sponsored with Sen. Bill Rabon (R-Brunswick) a bill supporting a grant program for the film and television industry, will read the details of the budget passed in the wee hours Friday. Then he will begin his efforts to keep as much as possible of the combined $80 million in grant funds  -- $40 million each for fiscal years 2015-16 and 2016-17 -- approved by the House.

“I’m certain that if that ended up being the number, that would be a good outcome,” Lee said Friday afternoon, but cautioned, “The Senate leadership has not made any comment [on the grant pool funding]. They have not been supportive in the past.

“Once we get the budget, Sen. Rabon and I will continue to push forward. We’ve had meetings with the [Senate] leadership on this and other issues.”

Earlier versions of the House budget this week included $60 million per fiscal year for the film grant program, a funding level Rep. Ted Davis (R-New Hanover) said he had "worked very hard" to achieve. With the expiration Dec. 31 of the tax credit program for film, lawmakers earmarked $10 million for a film grant program for the remainder of this fiscal year through June 30. Under the Dome and two productions shooting elsewhere in North Carolina claimed those funds. 

McGuireWoods, the firm retained by the city of Wilmington to represent its interests in Raleigh, will make the grant pool funding one of its priorities, Wilmington mayor Bill Saffo said Thursday.

The Wilmington Regional Film Commission has also hired a lobbyist to emphasize the economic benefits of a healthy film and television industry in southeastern North Carolina, said New Hanover County commissioner Beth Dawson, who chairs the film commission.

“Last year the film commission felt it was in our best interests ... to hire the services of a lobbyist, primarily to look out for our community and small business owners who have benefited so much” from the activities of the film industry in the region,” she said this week. 

Acknowledging that most of the region’s delegation has been supportive of film incentives, she said that working through a lobbyist is “a good way to have the issue out in front of other legislators that we may not have access to. So far, I’m cautiously optimistic about what we may have coming into the budget this year.”

The commission’s lobbyist is Tom Fetzer, a former Raleigh mayor and former chairman of the N.C. Republican Party who now heads Raleigh-based Fetzer Strategic Partners. Reached Friday, Fetzer said he could not comment on his efforts at this point. Johnny Griffin, director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission, likewise declined to comment Friday on what the commission’s strategies might be as the Senate considers its own budget proposal.

Earlier this week, however, Griffin said that the grant program’s funding level for the 2015-16 fiscal year “will be telling” because it would signal to film crew members here and elsewhere in the state -- as well as to studio decision-makers in California -- how to plan for the future.

In remarks at a Power Breakfast event earlier this year, Griffin said that a grant pool of $65 million per year would be necessary to maintain the level of film and television activity the area has enjoyed in recent years.

Lee thinks the state Senate will turn around its own budget proposal fairly quickly, possibly in two to three weeks.

The Senate has “already been working on where we want to go” with appropriations, he said, noting that when the Senate completes its own budget, the document will go back to the House, which will almost certainly want to make modifications. The real action will then move to an appointed conference committee, which will “start working on grinding out a compromise,” he said. Each chamber must approve the final product, which then goes to Gov. Pat McCrory for final approval.

The state Film Office, now part of the N.C. Department of Commerce, is waiting to see the outcome, for film, of House and Senate budget negotiations, officials said. Because it is part of state government, the office is not in a position to lobby for funding.

“At the end of the day, whatever the legislature comes back with is what we will use to promote North Carolina to the film industry,” N.C. Film Office Guy Gaster said Friday.

Other economic development-related items in the House budget includes $8 million each year to fund the Historic Preservation Tax Credits and nearly $58 million in Job Development Investment Grants (JDIG) for FY 2015-16. JDIG funding would be increased to nearly $72 million for FY 2016-17.