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

SPONSOR HHLC

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/22/07

HB 133/HLCS

SHORT TITLE Law Enforcement Stress Management Training SB

ANALYST Propst

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$315.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Finance and Administration (DFA)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

The House Labor and Human Resources Committee Substitute for House Bill 133 would

appropriate $315.0 in General Fund to the Department of Public Safety in FY08 to fund a pilot

program for stress reduction and stress management for law enforcement officers and other first

responders using Santa Fe-based clinical staff.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $315.0 is a recurring expense from the General Fund. DFA reports that

funding in future years would be significantly less as the expectation is that this pilot program

will open doors to funding from other sources.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Law enforcement, firefighters, EMT's are among the first individuals called out to accidents and

other emergency needs and witness traumatic incidents on a regular basis. The training program

proposed in this legislation would use clinicians trained in post traumatic stress disorders who

would work with all first responders and their family members in how to recognize systems

House Bill 133/HLCS – Page

2

associated with stress disorders. The program plans to establish continuing education credit for

the training. Any individual involved in working trauma scenes and their family members would

also be eligible to receive confidential counseling services from the program. The pilot program

will gather data on the demographic being served and will then be able to utilize the data to

further develop the needs of the program for future years.

The House Labor Committee adopted a committee substitute that would fund the program

through the Department of Public Safety instead of the Local Government Division of DFA as

contained in the original bill.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

$350.0 will not be appropriated and may limit the ability of officers and other first responders to

access needed services related to stress management.

WEP/nt:csd