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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 Robinson

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

3/10/07

H

B

SHORTTITLE

UNM INTERAMERICAN COOPERATION PROGRAM

SB 377

ANALYST Baca

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$50.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to Appropriation in the General Appropriation Act

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

New Mexico Higher Education Department (NMHED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 377 appropriates fifty thousand dollars from the general fund to the Board of

Regents of the University of New Mexico for expenditure in FY08 to pay for an Inter-American

Cooperation and Development Program.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $50,000 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

The NMHED reports that:

The Inter-American Cooperation and Development Program is a joint effort between the

Inter-American Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEAM) of the Organization of

Senate Bill 377 – Page

2

American States (OAS) and the Ibero-American Science and Technology Education

Consortium (ISTEC). Program funds will be used as follows: provide scholarships to

3,000 New Mexico teachers to take online courses through the Educational Portal of the

Americas; hire at least two programmers to bring the coursework online; hire one

consulting specialist in Education to design courses and review course content; produce

promotional materials for outreach; for Internet fees, and to purchase a new server.

The Educational Portal of the Americas is a virtual classroom program to teach online

courses in primary and secondary education and to train faculty at the undergraduate

level. Science and Technology coursework is a large component of the virtual classroom

program.

ISTEC is a consortium of more than 100 Latin American universities. UNM is a member

of this consortium. ISTEC was established as a network to foster scientific engineering

and technology education and to provide cost-effective programs for technology transfer

throughout the Americas. ISTEC industrial members include Hewlett-Packard, Sun

Microsystems, and Motorola. Educational programs include program development, web-

based distance learning, and onsite training to improve skills and knowledge of faculty

and students. ISTEC is a nonprofit organization housed at UNM.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

NMHED comments that application programs will have to be written to install coursework online.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

This bill funding request was not submitted by UNM to the New Mexico Higher Education

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

FY08.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

The online programs may not be developed.

LRB/mt