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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR Herrera
ORIGINAL DATE
LAST UPDATED
1/27/07
HB 164
SHORT TITLE UNM Land Grant Studies Program
SB
ANALYST McOlash
APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)
Appropriation
Recurring
or Non-Rec
Fund
Affected
FY07
FY08
$300.0
Recurring
General Fund
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
Duplicates SB 236.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
LFC Files
Responses Received From
Cultural Affairs Department (CAD)
Higher Education Department (HED)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Bill
House Bill 164 appropriates $300,000 from the General Fund to the Board of Regents of the
University of New Mexico for expenditure in FY 2008 and FY 2009 to develop a Land Grant
Studies Program at UNM in coordination with the UNM Law School, the UNM Center for
Regional Studies, and the UNM Hispanic Research Center. The funding to be used to develop
and administer the Land Grant Studies Program and to provide for internships and continuing
legal education.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
The appropriation of $300,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.
Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY 2009 shall revert to the
General Fund.
pg_0002
House Bill 164 – Page
2
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
The Cultural Affairs Department reports that land grant issues are still a current concern to many
New Mexicans – particularly in the northern part of the state. Land grant cases (private,
community, Pueblo) in Northern New Mexico are one of the most important and most researched
historical aspects in New Mexico’s history.
Land grant studies reported by CAD include:
Through efforts by New Mexico Senators Bingaman and Domenici, land grant research
was done by the U.S. General Accounting Office (which resulted in a publication on
community land grants in 2001)
There are small organizations such as the (501-c-3 non-profit ) Center for Land Grant
Studies by Malcolm Ebright, director, who provide land grant research in Northern New
Mexico
History and regional studies departments at the University of New Mexico and New
Mexico State University, and at the School of Law, University of New Mexico provide
research and study opportunities.
In 2000 Luna Vocational-Technical Institute, Las Vegas, was already proposing a land
grant studies center, but did not succeed.
Many of those studies are done as individual, stand-alone projects and a land grant program at
the University of New Mexico would draw in these studies and research findings, and would
provide students with an organized program and coherent means of researching current land
grant issues (and indirectly historical ones as well).
This proposal for $300,000 was not submitted to the HED by UNM and was not included in
HED’s funding recommendation for FY08.
BM/mt