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

SPONSOR Miera

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

01/31/08 HB 544

SHORT TITLE School Violence & Bullying Prevention

SB

ANALYST Escudero

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$20.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 544 appropriates $20.0 for a program to prevent violence and bullying in the schools.

The Public Education Department (PED) would be the fiscal agent for this program.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $20.0 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.

This bill would require approximately 50 hours minimum of an Education Administrator’s time,

at a cost of about $1675.00 ($25.50/hr + 30% benefits = $2.6). If the PED administrator would

be required to travel to implement this program, more hours would be needed.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

A recent nationally representative study of more than 15,000 6th-10th graders in the United

States found that:

House Bill 544 – Page

2

•

Nearly 20% admitted to bullying others “sometimes" or more often within a school

semester, and 9% bullied others once a week or more often;

•

17% said that they had been bullied “sometimes" or more often, and were bullied at least

once per week.

•

6% of the total sample said that they bullied and had been bullied “sometimes" or more

often. (Nansel, T.R. 2001)

•

The current leader in Bullying Prevention Programs is the Olweus Bullying Prevention

Program. On its website, the following materials are recommended for each school: 1

guidebook per school @ $90.00, 1 book per teacher @ $30, questionnaire set and scoring

program @ $250. This would total over $500,000 in materials alone, without any training of

teachers, administrators or counselors. (Olweus, 2008).

•

Stop Bullying NOW is a free U.S. Department of Education-endorsed program through the

Health and Human Services Department. (HHSA)

•

Violence and vandalism in New Mexico public schools has consistently gone down from 1999

to 2005, from 17,411 to 11,316 total incidents. (New Mexico Public Education Department,

University of New Mexico, 2005)

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

Although HB 544 does not contain any specific performance implications for PED, many New

Mexico schools are seeking ways to prevent bullying and violence and this type of program may

have a positive impact on academic success by creating a safer learning environment.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

An education administrator could be required to travel to help implement a program and this

could become very costly in relationship to the appropriation amount.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

•

The PED does not recommend or mandate any prevention model or program. This is a

district level decision.

•

$20.0 may not be enough to implement a quality program in one district

•

There is no mention of which schools or districts would have priority to this funding.

PME/bb