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

SPONSOR Miera

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/23/2007

HB 67

SHORT TITLE NM Highlands Medical-Health Interpreters

SB

ANALYST McOlash

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$185.2

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Health Policy Commission (HPC)

Department of Health (DOH)

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 67 appropriates $185,180 from the General Fund to the Regents of New Mexico

Highlands University (NMHU) for expenditure in FY08 to establish a pilot training center for

medical-health interpreters.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $185,180 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY08 shall revert to the

General Fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The Federal Health and Human Services Department through the National Office of Minority

Health produced the 14 Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards for

House Bill 67 – Page

2

health care organizations in 2001. The CLAS Standards mandate culturally appropriate health

care and services for clients who are not Linguistically English Proficient, and organizational

support for incorporating the CLAS Standards for health care provided to non-English speaking

patients/clients (DOH).

In recognition of this need, the DOH, in 2006, began providing bilingual medical interpreter

training including sections on cultural competence to direct service staff and community-based

providers in both Spanish and Navajo languages. In 2007, DOH will add an additional Spanish

language contractor to train 75 additional DOH staff and direct service staff of other health care

organizations.

This request was not on the list of priority projects submitted by NMHU to the Higher Education

Department for review and was not included in the Department’s funding recommendation for

FY08.

ALTERNATIVES

Higher education institutions receive indirect cost revenues from federal contracts and grants.

This money is unrestricted in the sense that the governing board of the institution has the

flexibility to choose which projects are supported with these funds. A great deal of this money is

used as seed money to develop new research and public services projects at institutions. A

portion of the indirect cost revenue, or earned overhead, is used to support items such as the

salaries of the accountants responsible for monitoring the contracts and grants, or for paying

utilities and other expenses required to maintain the space where the contract and grant activities

are housed.

The higher education funding formula allows institutions to retain 100% of this indirect cost

revenue. One of the purposes of retaining these funds is to provide seed money and matching

funds for projects such as the one proposed in this bill.

BM/csd