NOTE: As provided in LFC policy, this report is intended for use by the standing finance committees of the legislature.  The Legislative Finance Committee does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information in this report when used in any other situation.

The LFC is only preparing FIRs on bills referred to the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Ways and Means Committee, the House Appropriations and Finance Committee and the House Taxation and Revenue Committee. The chief clerks are responsible for preparing and issuing all other bill analyses.

Only the most recent FIR version, excluding attachments, is available on the Intranet. Previously issued FIRs and attachments may be obtained from the LFC office in Room 416 of the State Capitol Building.

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Department of Finance and Administration (DFA), Local Government Division (LGD)

Department of Public Safety (DPS), Office of Legal Affairs

Association of Counties

Corrections Department

SUMMARY

This bill is for the Courts, Corrections and Criminal Justice Committee.

Synopsis of SFC Amendment

The Senate Finance Committee amendment changes the effective date of the provisions of the bill from July 1, 1999 to July 1, 2000.

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 202 amends Section 4-44-18 NMSA 1978 and Section 4-44-20 NMSA 1978 to require the state to reimburse counties for 75% of the costs for per diem, mileage and other necessary travel expenses as well as the actual expenses incurred for the care and feeding of prisoners incurred while extraditing and transporting prisoners. Additionally, a single county shall not receive more than 50% of the total amount of money allocated to all counties as reimbursement. The bill would become effective July 1, 1999.

Significant Issues

The bill makes the reimbursement mandatory rather than discretionary and the reimbursement rate is mandated at 75%.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The bill does not provide a direct appropriation, however, based on the estimated $1 million counties spend per year for reimbursable costs, the required reimbursement by the state at 75% would be $750.0 in general fund.

The following lists prior year appropriations for the transportation and extraditions of prisoners:

FY Appropriation

94 700.0

95 420.0

96 350.0

97 175.0

98 0.0

99 0.0

TECHNICAL ISSUES

LGD notes the following issue:

on page 3, lines 13-16, the new sentence beginning "A county shall be..." refers to "...prisoners in transit." which includes all prisoners in transit. The sentence should be consistent with the previous section (page 2, lines 17-21 and refer only to "...extraditing prisoners from without the state and for transporting persons committed by a court to any state institution for required to be returned by order of the court from any state institution to the county of commitment."

The Corrections Department notes the following issues:

In Section 2 of the bill, on page 3, line 16, after the word "transit" insert the phrase by submitting claims for reimbursement to the Department of Finance and Administration."

On page 3, line 4 and line 18, change the work "as" to "for."

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

According to LGD, counties were reimbursed by the state an annual average of $365.2 over the last six fiscal years ranging from a high of $464.2 in FY93 to a low of $175.0 in FY98. The appropriation for FY99 does not include an appropriation for reimbursements.

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