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

SPONSOR Stapleton

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

02/02/08

02/10/08 HB 447/aHEC

SHORT TITLE Educational Program for Student Athletes

SB

ANALYST Williams

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$185.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

Central New Mexico Community College (CNM)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of HEC Amendment

The House Education Committee (HEC) amendment would make the appropriation to the Local

Government Division of the Department of Finance and Administration, rather than the Higher

Education Department.

Synopsis of Original Bill

House Bill 447 appropriates $185,000 from the General Fund to the Higher Education

Department for the purpose of establishing an educational program for student athletes through

Central New Mexico Community College. The program would be available for student athletes

attending four-year institutions and would offer developmental courses with the goal of

increasing student grade point average to maintain athletic eligibility.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $185,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY09 shall revert to the

General Fund.

House Bill 447/aHEC – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

HED notes CNM and University of New Mexico (UNM) have a partnership for development

education in which CNM teaches all of the remedial reading, math and English courses at UNM.

CNM specializes in the lower division courses, while UNM has a higher academic agenda. The

two institutions are currently developing a Gateway Program for CNM to offer the first 24 credit

hours to UNM students. CNM discusses that these students want to attend UNM, but do not

meet eligibility requirements for admissions. After successfully competing coursework at CNM,

the students will be able to transfer to UNM.

According to HED, student athletes must show increases in their annual progress rate and meet

the required grade point average by the junior year. Special admission programs frequently

accept students who are talented in one area through deficient in another.

According to CNM, students who study in the developmental education program are more

successful in college level classes.

An expansion or initiative request for this proposal was not submitted to the HED for

consideration in Fall 2007. The January 2008 LFC report “Higher Education Department

Review of Selected Research and Public Service Projects" discusses best practices for funding

these types of projects.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

CNM notes the importance of developing a new performance measure related to completion. A

performance measure currently included in HB 2 is the percent of new students taking nine or

more credit hours successful after three years. Students who transfer to a four-year institution

prior to the student receiving a certificate or degree from CNM do not meet the definition of

“success" for the current methodology for this performance measure. The proposed student

athlete program would reduce the reported success rate.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

CNM notes “because of high personnel turnover rates at the Higher Education Department, the

agency has had difficulty in processing draws in a timely manner." CNM also discusses an

alternative of appropriating funds directly to Central New Mexico Community College.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

Formula funding for current partnership programs are shared: The instructional component of

higher education funding is received by CNM, while the general component of higher education

funding is distributed to UNM.

ALTERNATIVES

UNM could use existing funding formula revenues, athletic revenues or private contributions for

the cost of this program.

House Bill 447/aHEC – Page

3

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS

1.

What potential performance measures would track program outcomes.

AW/mt