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

SPONSOR Lujan, B.

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2-3-2008

HB 518

SHORT TITLE High School Student College Scholarships

SB

ANALYST Dearing

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$50.0

$50.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 518 appropriates $50 thousand from the general fund to the Higher Education

department for the purpose of providing matching funding for post-secondary scholarships.

Appropriation will match funds offered by a New Mexico-based nonprofit foundation that has

provided annual needs and merit based scholarships to New Mexico high school students totaling

at least fifty thousand dollars annually for the last five years. House Bill 518 stipulates that no

amount of this appropriation may be used for overhead at either the department or the non-profit

and must be expended as scholarship aid in its entirety. The bill carries an emergency clause and

appropriates the funds for FY08.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $50 thousand contained in House Bill 518 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. The bill carries an emergency clause and appropriates the funds for

FY08.

House Bill 518 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the department, there are several New Mexico based non-profit organizations that

award at least $50,000 in higher education merit and need-based scholarships to New Mexico

high school students. To provide a context of community foundations that offer college

scholarships to high schools students, NMHED contacted the New Mexico Community

Foundation and the Albuquerque Community Foundation and both indicated that their granting

exceeded the minimum $50,000 criteria House Bill 518 requires. Both foundations also indicated

there is a great need for alternative scholarships targeting New Mexico high school students.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

If enacted, the LFC recommends that the Higher Education department submits a plan for

program evaluation with specific program goals and criteria for assessing the effectiveness and

provides suggested outputs, outcomes and performance measures to evaluate the performance of

state government programs as prescribed in the Accountability in Government Act. Relevant

performance measures for the proposed legislation could include number of students receiving

levered scholarships, etc.

PD/nt