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

SPONSOR Sanchez, M.

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2-10-06

HB

SHORT TITLE Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly

SB 608

ANALYST Woods

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

$125.0

Non-Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Finance and Administration (DFA)

No Responses Received From

Office of the State Engineer- Interstate Stream Commission (OSE)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 608, which makes an appropriation to support the Middle Rio Grande Water Assem-

bly, seeks to appropriate $125,000 from the general fund to the Interstate Stream Commission for

expenditure in fiscal year 2007 to create an open-access, nonproprietary, web-based application

for viewing the potential outcomes of specific water management decisions as reflected in

changes in land use, including a geographic information system model for geo-spatial visualiza-

tion complete with hosting and data collection. Any unexpended or unencumbered balance re-

maining at the end of fiscal year 2007 shall revert to the general fund.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) indicates that the appropriation may not

be sufficient to accomplish such an ambitious task, in which case additional appropriations may

be necessary. If successful, additional fiscal impact may be experienced if any of the fifteen

other regions request funding for similar modeling applications for their planning and public out-

reach processes.

Senate Bill 608 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

DFA further suggests that this appropriation would fund an application for modeling various wa-

ter management scenarios. The Rio Grande Water Assembly is a group that formed in response

to development of the middle Rio Grande regional water plan, which is part of the State Water

Plan process. One of the difficulties encountered by the agency and regions in developing re-

gional water plans is figuring out ways to communicate how various decisions in one part of the

plan may affect other parts of the plan. The Assembly believes this modeling application would

result in better understanding on the part of stakeholders involved in the process and may ulti-

mately lead to better, more holistic decision making.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

DFA concludes that the application funded by this appropriation could improve the depth and

quality of the region's plan and lead to a greater understanding among participant stakeholders of

the effect of various decisions. However, since this region's plan (like most others) has already

been completed, access to this informative tool may actually revive debate and cause the periodic

regional plan review and update process to take longer and cost more than anticipated.

BW/mt