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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR	Snyder		DATE TYPED	1/28/04		HB
SHORT TITLE		Evaluate Drug Courts				SB	133
					ANALYST		Koplik

APPROPRIATION

Appropriation Contained		Estimated Additional Impact		Recurring or Non-Rec	Fund Affected
FY04	FY05	FY04	FY05	Recurring or Non-Rec	Fund Affected
	$160.0			Recurring	General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to Appropriation in the General Appropriation Act

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Administrative Office of the Courts

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 133 appropriates $160 thousand from the general fund to the Administrative Office of the Courts for the purpose of evaluating existing drug courts. The funding is recurring to allow an evaluation for each drug court in the state once every two to four years.

Significant Issues

New Mexico drug courts were started with federal seed money and were programmatically evaluated according to the differing requirements of each particular federal funding organization. Over the last several years, the state has replaced lapsing federal funding of drug courts but has not yet established standardized programmatic evaluation criteria for the growing number of state-funded drug court programs.

Drug court programs require periodic outcomes analysis, cost-benefit, and operational evaluations in order to substantiate their programs and improve upon past performance. Such evaluations will compare long- and short-term outcomes to each program’s set goals, the outcomes of other New Mexico and national drug courts, and to similar populations (such as probationers) who have not been through a drug court program. Cost-benefit and operational studies will also promote efficient and effective use of funds, staff, contractual entities, cooperating agencies and community services.

This appropriation would allow the AOC to contract with a single evaluation organization for development of a standardized set of programmatic evaluation criteria as well as schedule evaluations of a significant number of the drug court programs in FY 05.