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

SPONSOR Taylor

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/7/06

HB

SHORT TITLE

NM Highlands Bilingual Education Material

SB 364

ANALYST Hoffmann

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

$400.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to Senate Bill 415/SFCS.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 364 appropriates $400,000 from the general fund to the Board of Regents of New

Mexico Highlands University to compile and distribute bilingual education materials statewide

for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade and for production of a monthly periodical,

digitalization of materials and production of a weekly radio show.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $400,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of a fiscal shall not revert to the

general fund.

Senate Bill 364 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

This bilingual materials proposal for $400,000 was not on the list of requests received by the

New Mexico Higher Education Department (NMHED) from NMHU. However, a bilingual ma-

terials request for $200,000 is included in the Executive Office’s budget brief.

The proposal for this line-item appropriation was not included in the LFC’s appropriations rec-

ommendations.

HAFC/H 2, 3,4,5,6 and 78 contains in Section 5 “SPECIAL APPROPRIATIONS” $200,000 for

this purpose.

Chapter 22 Article 23 NMSA 1978, the Bilingual Multicultural Education Act, gives the Public

Education Department the authority to issue rules on the develop and implement bilingual multi-

cultural education programs in the public schools, to administer and enforce the requirements of

the Bilingual Multicultural Education Act, and to assist school boards in developing and evaluat-

ing bilingual multicultural education programs.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

The Higher Education Department (HED) recommends that NMHU develop a plan for this ini-

tiative that includes project goals and objectives as well as timelines and outcomes. This should

be submitted to the HED no later that October 2006. Performance should eventually be aligned

with the Public Education Department (PED) and HED standards putting a framework in place

that will measure success according to an assessment plan.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

According to the Public Education Department:

•

There is a total of 58,403 (18.4%) of the total student population in the New Mexico Pub-

lic School System in grades K-12 participating in Bilingual Education programs;

•

A total of 58 districts receive state funding for implementing Bilingual Education pro-

grams (Source-Accountability Data System 80th 2005-2006); and

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