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

SPONSOR Heaton

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/23/2007

HB 45

SHORT TITLE NM Tech Summer Science Program

SB

ANALYST McOlash

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$72.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates SB 75.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 45 appropriates $72,000 from the General Fund to the Board of Regents of New

Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMIMT) for expenditure in FY08 to provide

scholarships to cover the tuition for New Mexico high school students attending a Summer Sci-

ence Program (SSP). The program is intended to recruit New Mexico students considering ca-

reers in a scientific field.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $72,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY 2008 shall revert to the

General Fund.

House Bill 45 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The Summer Science Program is operated by Summer Science Program, Inc., an independent

non-profit corporation, and established in cooperation with California Institute of Technology,

Harvey Mudd College, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, New Mexico Tech, Pomona College, Stanford

University, and UCLA. It is an accredited observing affiliate of the Harvard/Smithsonian Center

for Astrophysics (summerscience.org).

The SSP is a six-week residential enrichment program in which small teams of gifted high

school students apply physics, calculus and programming to determine the orbit of an asteroid

from their own observations.

This prestigious program has drawn young scientists from around the world for 45 years, accel-

erating their academic and personal development, and inspiring them to seek equally challenging

educational and career paths. Many SSP alumni have gone on to distinguish themselves at

selective universities.

Established at Thacher School in 1959, SSP now takes place at two campuses: New Mexico

Tech in Socorro and Happy Valley School in Ojai, California (northwest of Los Angeles). The

curriculum is identical at the two campuses.

The Summer Science Program receives support from these sources

(summerscience.org):

•

Contributions from individual alumni, parents of alumni, former faculty, and other

friends of the Program, and matching grants from their employers.

•

Grants and in-kind donations from foundations, corporations, and other institutions, in-

cluding: New Mexico Institute of Technology, Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation,

Mitchell Kapor Foundation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lockheed Martin / Sandia

National Laboratory, and High Tide Foundation.

•

Program fees paid by participants, net of need-based financial aid (which covers less than

half of SSP's operating costs).

This request was not on the list of priority projects submitted by New Mexico Institute of Mining

and Technology to the New Mexico Higher Education Department for review and was not in-

cluded in the Department’s funding recommendation for FY08.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

HB 45 is a duplicate of SB 75.

BM/mt