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committees of the NM Legislature. The LFC does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of these reports

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

SPONSOR Papen

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/26/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Health Cooperative Extension Offices

SB 327

ANALYST McOlash

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$200.0 Non-Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 276 and SB 2.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

University of New Mexico/New Mexico State University

Department of Health (DOH)

Health Policy Commission (HPC)

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 327 appropriates $200,000 from the General Fund to the Board of Regents of New

Mexico State University for expenditure in FY 2008 to develop, in conjunction with the

University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (HSC), a comprehensive joint plan for a

sustainable health cooperative extension rural office system to serve ten rural county extension

offices, in collaboration with community partners, to address local health priorities.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $200,000 contained in this bill is a non-recurring expense to the General

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

the General Fund.

Senate Bill 327 – Page

2

According to HED, the appropriation would be used to complete a feasibility study for the

implementation of Health Extension Rural Offices (HERO). Ten thousand dollars will be

distributed to each of ten communities for travel, staff, and facilitators to identify gaps in health

care services. Another $50,000 will be distributed each university for their on-campus Health

Care Alliance Offices to fund associated staff and travel needs.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

New Mexico State University, in conjunction with UNM, seeks funding to study the feasibility

of developing ten HEROs to serve rural counties in New Mexico. The UNM/NMSU analysis

includes a number of goals associated with this initiative: (1) connecting university resources and

programs to support community need and extend health knowledge; (2) promoting self-

responsibility of individual health including preventive health behaviors; (3) responding to health

personnel recruitment and retention needs of rural and underserved communities; (4) advocating

for and assisting rural communities in identifying and conveying their recommendations for

health policies; and creating/implementing community economic and health-related development

programs.

This request was not on the list of priority projects submitted by NMSU to the New Mexico

Higher Education Department for review and was not included in the Departments funding

recommendations for FY08.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

Higher Education Department Analysis

Senate Bill 327 does not indicate performance measures. Proposed evaluation

criteria from UNM HSC include the development of a Community Report

Card for each CHEO, a process evaluation tool to measure local community

awareness and satisfaction as well as additional quantitative and qualitative

outcome data on health professional recruitment and access information.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

House Bill 276 (Health Cooperative Extension Services) and Senate Bill 327 (Health

Cooperative Extension Offices) are duplicates, except for titles.

Senate Bill 2 appropriates $11,012.8 to New Mexico State University for Cooperative Extension

Services.

BM/csd