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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

3/01/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE At-Risk Hispanic Youth Educational Programs

SB 875

ANALYST Aguilar

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$350.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates SB 57

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 875 appropriates $350 thousand from the general fund to the Public Education

Department for the purpose of disseminating a culturally based language arts and social science

curriculum targeting at-risk Hispanic youth and their families.

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 875 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

PED notes this 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% of

their yearly allocation.

PED also notes that 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/csd