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

SPONSOR Campos

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/13/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE At-Risk Hispanic Youth Educational Programs

SB 577

ANALYST Aguilar

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$350.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to appropriations in the General Appropriation Act

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 577 appropriates $350 thousand from the general fund to the Public Education

Department for supporting statewide dissemination of a culturally based language arts and social

science curriculum targeting at-risk Hispanic youth and their families.

The bill also provides for teacher training and community members in dropout prevention.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $350 thousand contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general

fund. Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2008 shall

revert to the general fund.

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

disequalize school funding and diverts funding away from core educational needs.

Senate Bill 577 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

PED notes the bill does not provide data relative to the specific needs for the culturally based

language arts and social science curriculum targeting at-risk Hispanic youth and their families.

Districts are provided with funding to purchase both language arts and social studies materials on

a cyclical basis and those materials are to include materials that are not only aligned to the state

content standards, but also the local curriculum that is developed at the local level to support the

needs of local students. If materials are not found on the adoption list and are needed to support

student learners, districts have an option to purchase materials from other sources with 50

percent of their yearly allocation.

PED also notes the bill does not identify what is to be included within a request that is different

from the calls sent out by the Instructional Materials Bureau during these specific instructional

material adoptions. It would be difficult for the PED to develop a new Request for Proposal

different from the recent requests without specific criteria. Criteria should not only be supported

by alignment of state standards but also some specific data regarding student performance on the

state-mandated assessments that would justify and would be proposing to address the need.

PA/nt