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

SPONSOR Maestas

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/23/2007

HB 1205

SHORT TITLE Teaching of Financial Literacy in Schools

SB

ANALYST Aguilar

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Conflicts with HB 68 and SB 211 and HB 584 and SB 561

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 1205 provides that financial literacy be offered as an elective for high school

students. The bill also makes technical changes to language.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Financial literacy has received notable attention since the passage of Title V of the Fair and

Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACT Act) that established the Financial Literacy and

Education Commission with the purpose of improving the financial literacy and education of

persons in the United States. There is current data on high school student financial literacy and

their understanding of what is financial literacy. Results indicate that there is some indication of

improvement from the 2004 to the 2006 survey, but it is minimal and less than 60 percent.

While financial literacy is a component of the Economics Strand of the New Mexico Social

Studies Content Standards and is incorporated into the required semester economics graduation

unit, it is acknowledged that the time given to this topic is limited and that students might be

better served with an option of having this elective available.

PA/csd