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

SPONSOR Nava

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/6/07

HB

SHORT TITLE Suspension of Certain School Board Members

SB 207

ANALYST Aguilar

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 146

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

Attorney General’s Office (AGO)

Department of Finance and Administration (DFA)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 207 authorizes the department of public education to suspend a local school board

member for cause, specifically malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty or violation of the oath

of office. Currently, the department may suspend a local school board, a local superintendent or

school principal only for failure to meet a school district’s requirements. The bill also adds

language that clarifies that the governing body and head administrator of a charter school are

covered by the suspension law.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Currently the public education department does not have the authority to suspend a member of a

local school board member or a charter school administrator for malfeasance, misfeasance, and

neglect of duty or violation of the oath of office but can only deal with the entire board.

Senate Bill 207 – Page

2

The Public Education department notes that the underlying suspension law is a rarely used law

but was invoked in recent years in a matter involving serious alleged improprieties occurring in

two vocational charter schools. The law has been considered but not invoked in a number of

scenarios since then. The bill addresses what the PED has seen, namely, that when bad conduct

suggesting suspension by the PED comes into play, not every local school board member is part

of that conduct.

PED further notes the concepts of removing officials from office for malfeasance, misfeasance

and neglect of duty in office are found throughout New Mexico law as applicable to various

officials that include municipal officers, county officers, election officials and district attorneys.

Under Article XII, Section 14 of the New Mexico Constitution, local school board members can

only be recalled for “malfeasance or misfeasance in office or violation of the oath of office."

Suspension of the authority of a school board member is not intended to be a substitute for the

recall process or a process to permanently remove these elected officials from office. Rather,

suspension of authority is a corrective measure that can only be imposed until such time that the

offending conduct or behavior is corrected.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

SB–207 relates to HB–146 in that the latter bill would limit the number of times to one a local

school board member could face a recall election due to malfeasance or violation of oath of

office. Both bills seek to address problems associated with school board member activities that

can be considered malfeasance or a violation of the oath of office. The difference in the two is a

policy decision whether to allow PED authority to suspend a local school board member or to

retain unrestricted petition and recall authority in the voters.

PA/nt