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

SPONSOR B. Sanchez

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/27/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE UNM Land Grant Studies Program

SB 236

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 HB 164.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Cultural Affairs Department (CAD)

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 236 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.

Senate Bill 236 – 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/csd