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

SPONSOR Strickler

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/15/2007

HB 1148

SHORT TITLE ENMU Distance Education Program

SB

ANALYST Moser

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$100.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 891 and SB 660

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

NM Department of Transportation (DOT)

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 1148 appropriates $100,000 from the General Fund to the Board of Regents of

Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) for expenditure in FY08 to support the university's

distance education program.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $100,000 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

HED indicates that ENMU would use the recurring funds to expand its current distance

education curriculum by purchasing two (2) Polycom devices each year until reaching the ten

House Bill 1148 – Page

2

necessary to fill each distance education site. Polycom devices are high quality instructional and

conferencing learning tools that are portable and require large bandwidth. They will be used at

ENMU’s current distance education sites located in Farmington, Ruidoso, Tucumcari, Cannon

AFB, Hobbs, and Roswell. ENMU currently uses ITV, which is a one way communication tool

and online services such as WebCT.

ENMU distance education would offer professional development courses in addition to graduate

level courses for those pursuing masters degrees. The courses would provide educational

opportunities to rurally isolated students while drawing on existing full time faculty.

ENMU budget for appropriation:

Two (2) Polycom learning and instructional tools - $44,000

Director’s salary @½ time - $28,000

Bandwidth, supplies and operational items - $28,000

$100,000

This request was not submitted by ENMU to the New Mexico Higher Education Department for

review and is not included in the Department’s funding recommendation for FY08.

According to Dr. Steven Gamble, ENMU President, ten Polycom devices located at the satellite

sites would have the capacity to reach approximately 200 students per year.

GM/csd