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

SPONSOR Sandoval

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/31/08

HB 600

SHORT TITLE NM Poison & Drug Info Center Program

SB

ANALYST Haug

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$50.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 296

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

New Mexico Health Policy Commission (HPC)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 600 appropriates $50.0 from the general fund to the Board of Regents of the

University of New Mexico to increase the base budget of the New Mexico Poison and Drug

Information Center of the College of Pharmacy.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $50.0 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund. Any

unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2009 shall revert to the

general fund.

A request for the NMPDIC was submitted to the New Mexico Higher Education Department for

review. The Department’s funding recommendation for FY09 is a continuance of FY08 recurring

funding in the amount $1,156,700.

House Bill 600 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the HED, UNM administers the operation of the New Mexico Poison and Drug

Information Center (NMPDIC) through the College of Pharmacy, located on the Health Sciences

Center campus. It serves as a teaching site that exposes students, residents, and fellows to enough

clinical toxicology to provide a meaningful educational experience.

The HED states that the funding will allow NMPDIC to continue to provide 24-hour service to

all residents of New Mexico. It does not increase services provided. According to UNM, from

FY04 through FY07, NMPDIC has accumulated deficits, and the predicted deficit for FY07-

FY08 is $140,000. These deficits are primarily the result of annual leave, holiday, and on-call

expenses associated with telephone staff (9.17 FTE’s). When NMPDIC is fully staffed, its

budget will not support the true costs of providing service. NMPDIC has had to allocate nearly

all of the Materials and Services’ portion of its budget to cover salary expenses. As a result, the

Center does not have enough funding to provide public education materials, replace outdated

computer equipment, or to pay telephone expenses

The HPC states:

The Health Policy Commissioners at their Sept, 2007 meeting endorsed the activities of

the Poison Center. It was estimated that this program saved the state $21.4 million in

health care dollars this past year.

The bill asks for a budget expansion for the Poison Center at UNMHSC. The volume of

total calls, drug information calls, poison exposure calls, poisons treated at home, the

percentage exposures treated at home, and cost savings from the program have been

steadily increasing since fiscal year 2001. The base budget increase assumes increases in

these metrics in the future and addition operating costs to meet this increased demand for

services.

Of the 41,376 calls received by the New Mexico Poison and Drug Information Center in

2006, 23,089 involved human exposures. 15,582 of those cases were managed at home.

An average cost to an emergency department to evaluate a poison exposure is

approximately $362. (Source: UNM Health Science Center.)

RELATIONSHIP

House Bill 296 would appropriate $300.0 for the same purpose.

GH/bb