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

SPONSOR Fox-Young

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/21/07

2/22/07 HB 991

SHORT TITLE Lobbying Contracts for Certain Departments

SB

ANALYST Wilson/Baca

ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT (dollars in thousands)

FY07

FY08

FY09 3 Year

Total Cost

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

Total

($0.1)

($0.1)

($0.1) Recurring

General

Fund and

various

others

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Corrections Department (CD)

Department of Finance & Administration (DFA)

Office of the Attorney General (OAG)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 991

prohibits an executive department created in Chapter 9 NMSA 1978, or an

official with such a department, from contracting for lobbying services unless specifically

authorized by law.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

Executive agencies that currently contract for lobbyists will not be permitted to do so and

therefore the funding in these contracts will be a savings to those agencies. This will be balanced

out by an increased need for agency personnel to lobby for important legislation to an agency.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

In the past, some executive agencies have hired persons under professional services agreements

to perform "consulting" or "lobbying" services for the agencies. Usually, these would not be

lobbying firms or businesses so much as individual persons. These individuals were either

House Bill 991– Page

2

knowledgeable in a particular area or once employees of the agency in question and so

understand that agencies needs, requirements, etc. The passage of this bill would stop this

practice.

DFA notes that this bill was apparently introduced in response to the pre-session flap concerning

a lobbyist paid by the State Lottery Commission. It should be noted that the State Lottery

Commission is not listed in Chapter 9 NMSA and the Commission would not be prohibited from

paying a lobbyist pursuant to this bill. In fact, the contract was cancelled at the direction of the

Governor. While it is not known how many state agencies routinely hire lobbyists, it is believed

that several lobbyists are representing state agencies during the current session. DFA has been

requested to submit a list of any and all agencies that employed lobbyists during the 2007

legislative session.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

DFA also notes that passage of this bill will make it necessary for agency personnel themselves

to lobby for bills that their agencies wish to see passed or defeated. This will clearly have some

impact on time spent away from the office for these personnel, although many of them likely

already have such duties as part of their job requirements which will lessen any performance

implications, of course.

QUESTIONS

•

How widespread is the practice of state agencies hiring lobbyists.

•

How does this compare with practices in other states.

DW/mt