The four-year-old tax incentive program provided city TV and film productions with credits up to 35 percent for below-the-line costs — essentially covering everything but actor, director and writer salaries.
   Since the program hit a state-mandated spending cap last month, the Governor's Office for Motion Picture and Television Development stopped taking new applications for city productions.
   Now electricians, cameramen and set designers are banding together to save the incentives and in the process, keep thousands of well-paying union jobs from fleeing the city for tax havens in Canada and elsewhere in the U.S.
   However, for many on the “Mars” set, tax breaks may prove to be the least of the low-rated show’s problems.
   ABC decided Monday not to order a second season of the program, according to TVSeriesFinale.com.
   “Actors can go anywhere,” said “Life on Mars” star Michael Imperioli before word of the cancellation hit Tuesday. “But for these people, it would be devastating.”
   The battle to lift the tax spending cap on the program promises to be a tough one, especially given Albany's projected $13.2 billion budget shortfall.
   But proponents of the tax incentives say the program more than pays for itself.
   “These credits are not charity,” said Mary Rae Thewlis, a unit production manager at “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” another city-based TV hit. “They generate revenue at a time when the city and state need it most.”
   The loss of the tax credit already has resulted in a dramatic drop-off in the number of television series and pilots filmed in the city.
   Producers from Fox’s popular drama “Fringe” announced last week that the show would move production from New York to Vancouver, Canada, citing the tax incentive program’s uncertain future as the reason for the change in location.
   Last year, 19 television pilots began filming at studios throughout Queens and Brooklyn. None are planned for this year.
   Even before word of the cancellation hit, many “Life On Mars” workers were afraid of losing their jobs. “It really affects us because we’re not trained for anything else,” said prop technician Pat McGowan. “We’ve dedicated our lives to get good at doing this.”
   Another prop tech, Mandie DeMeskey, already started cutting back on expenses, going out with friends less often and cooking meals at home.
   Hoping for the best, DeMeskey also prepared for the worst. “I think I’m going to have to bartend for the first time in my life,” she said. “And I’m not going to watch any of these shows.”
   “Ugly Betty,” which films at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, faces a similarly uncertain future. Drawn by state tax incentives last year, production moved from California to the city — and could easily move again.
   In addition to film and television production centers like Vancouver, states like Michigan offer tax breaks up to 40 percent for a wider range of shooting costs, making the loss of New York’s incentives to the industry all the more acutely felt.
   “It’s very appropriate that we are on the set of ‘Life On Mars,’” said actor Richard Masur at Kaufman Studios Monday. “You would have to live on Mars not to understand this.”