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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
2/13/06
HB HJM 78
SHORT TITLE
EARLY CARE & EDUCATION RETIREMENT
BENEFITS
SB
ANALYST Weber
APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)
Appropriation
Recurring
or Non-Rec
Fund
Affected
FY06
FY07
None
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
LFC Files
SUMMARY
House Joint Memorial 78 indicates that professionally trained early childhood teachers and
program directors are essential to ensuring that quality programs are available for infants,
toddlers and preschoolers. The turnover rate of teachers is very high, between twenty-two
percent and thirty-three percent a year, according to the 2004 New Mexico early care and
education workforce study. Long-term, stable relationships are essential in the lives of the
youngest children, and the departure of teachers causes disruptions in early childhood programs
and in the fabric of trust and connection developed over time between young children and their
teachers. High-quality early childhood programs are necessary to ensure that children are ready
for school when they enter kindergarten. When early child care and education teachers gain
more education and acquire advanced degrees, they often leave early childhood programs to
work in public schools, where salaries, benefits and working conditions are substantially better.
The New Mexico early care and education workforce study indicates that one-third of early
childhood teachers have no health insurance. Many early childhood teachers are not eligible for
the state coverage insurance program because their incomes are more than two hundred percent
of the federal poverty level. The New Mexico early care and education workforce study
participants listed higher pay and better benefits as the top factors that would make teachers and
program directors more likely to remain in their jobs.
The joint memorial asks that the legislative health and human services committee be requested to
study the value and impact of providing medical, retirement and other benefits to early care and
education teachers and directors, identify methods to deliver and finance benefits and report its
findings and recommendations, if any, to the first session of the forty-eighth legislature; and
that a copy of this memorial be transmitted to the chair of the legislative health and human