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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

1/31/07

HB

SHORT TITLE UNM African-American Studies Program

SB 385

ANALYST Guambaña

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$25.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 385 appropriates $25,000 from the General Fund to the Board of Regents of the

University of New Mexico (UNM) for the African-American Studies Program.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $25,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY 08 shall revert to the

General Fund.

According to HED, this request was not submitted by UNM to the Department for review and is

not included in their funding recommendation for FY08.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

HED maintains that the African American Studies Program at UNM offers a variety of courses

specific to the literature, history, and culture of the African or Black Diaspora. The program

offers an interdisciplinary baccalaureate degree, a specialized minor, and a general minor in

Senate Bill 385 – Page

2

African American Studies. The appropriation would be used to support the delivery of

educational activities and services to UNM students as well as to the local community.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

HED states that UNM’s African American Studies Program houses the Charlie Morrisey

Research Hall which is the known as the Southwest's best repository of documents about Black

people of the Southwest that includes: rare books, manuscripts, and magazines, old photographs,

audio and video tapes, deeds and titles to lands, oral histories, and other archival artifacts which

document the presence of Africans and African Americans in New Mexico and the Southwest in

general. The Research Hall organizes public lectures and panel discussions to address the

contributions of Africans and African Americans to the Southwest.

AG/mt