NOTE: As provided in LFC policy, this report is intended for use by the standing finance committees of the legislature.  The Legislative Finance Committee does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information in this report when used in any other situation.

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(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates/Conflicts with/Companion to/Relates to

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

State Department of Public Education (SDE)

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

This bill amends a section of the Public School Finance Act to require the State Department of Public Education (SDE) to submit the annual public school support budget recommendations of the State Board of Education on or before September 1.

Significant Issues

This statutory change would bring the public school budget request due date in line with Section 6-3-19 NMSA 1978, which requires state agencies to submit appropriation requests no later than September 1.

Currently, the department submits amendments to the public school funding formula and the annual public school budget recommendations including pupil transportation and instructional materials to Department of Finance and Administration (DFA), Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) and Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC) on or before November 30 each year. The date of November 30 was chosen to correspond to the department receiving 40th day data from 89 school districts since the State Board recommendations for the succeeding year were based on projected student enrollment using 40th day data.

Last year, statutory changes were made to the Public School Finance Act to require the use of prior year 40th day and December 1 membership to calculate program units, effective July 1, 1999 and to require the use of an average of the prior year membership on the 40th, 80th, and 120th days to calculate program units effective July 1, 2000.

The move to using prior year data to calculate program units places the department in a much better position to comply with a September 1 submission date.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The change in submission date would not affect the appropriation process for public schools. It would however allow a greater time for review by DFA, LFC and LESC.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

Line 20, change October 15 to August 15. This amendment will require school districts to submit required information to SDE prior to August 15 so the department may comply with the September 1 deadline.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

The Executive also recommends this statutory change.

SDE indicates that this change would require the department to project membership for FY02 based on only one years' worth of data.

It should be noted that the department would be able to submit revisions

CTF/njw