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

SPONSOR Nava

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2-10-2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Northern New Mexico Network

SB 256

ANALYST Dearing

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$170.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT (dollars in thousands)

FY07

FY08

FY09 3 Year

Total Cost

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

Total

$2.6

$2.6 Nonrecurring General

Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 256 appropriates $170 thousand from the general fund for expenditure in FY08 to

Public Education department for the Northern New Mexico Network for math and science

programs.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $170 thousand contained in Senate Bill 256 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.

The LFC remains concerned with funding initiatives outside of the funding formula as it tends to

dis-equalize school funding and diverts funding away from core educational needs.

Senate Bill 256 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The Northern New Mexico Network for rural education is a collaborative cooperative of 28 rural

school districts, organized for improvement quality of life in rural northern New Mexico. In the

past the network received $4.7 million for a rural systemic initiative (RSI) funded by the

National Science Foundation. This initiative featured math and science specialists reviewing the

needs of individual districts, schools and teachers, in order to plan interventions to address those

specific needs. The funds appropriated in Senate Bill 256 would be used to support two math

and science specialists.

The network has since collaborated with the Mathematically Connected Communities (MC2)

project at New Mexico State University. This project received funds through the department as

part of a federally-funded Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program. The network also

received $300 thousand for FY07 from the department’s Summer Math and Reading institutes to

continue programming.

The Northern New Mexico Network was organized to aggregate the concerns of small, rural

school districts of Northern New Mexico. These districts had been poorly represented in

policymaking by the department. The rural groups have since organized to pursue school

improvement.

Other network initiatives and collaborative efforts include:

•

A multi-year collaborative with the Panasonic Foundation

•

A recent partnership with the Los Alamos National Labs Outreach Office

•

A Northwest Evaluation Association's level testing pilot program

Member school districts are Chama, Clayton, Cuba, Des Moines, Dulce, Espanola, Grants,

Jemez Mountain, Jemez Valley, Las Vegas City, Los Alamos, Mesa Vista, Mora, Pecos,

Penasco, Pojoaque, Questa, Santa Rosa, Springer, Taos, Wagon Mound, West Las Vegas and

Raton.

PD/mt