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

SPONSOR Leavell

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

02/10/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Lea County Distance Education Consortium

SB 556

ANALYST Moser

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$100.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 68, HB 201 and SB 209

Relates to Appropriation in the General Appropriation Act

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

NM Department of Higher Education (HED)

Department of Public Education (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 556 appropriates $100,000 from the General Fund to the New Mexico Higher

Education Department for expenditure in FY08 for New Mexico Junior College (NMJC) to fund

operation and expansion of the Lea County distance education consortium. The consortium

supports local public school districts and universities in the development, deployment and use of

distance education technologies to extend learning.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $100,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY08 shall revert to the

general fund.

Senate Bill 556 – Page

2

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The Lea County Distance Education Consortium has been in existence for approximately 15

years. The consortium delivers Instructional Television (ITV) courses to all of the Lea County

school districts (Hobbs, Eunice, Tatum, Lovington, Jal), and Eastern New Mexico University in

Roswell and Portales.

HED states that according to the college president, current bandwidth charges and costs are out

of control with the smaller telecommunications companies in the area, and the college looks

forward to working with the state to lower these costs. This appropriation would help subsidize

the participating members' costs to make it affordable to deliver ITV.

In FY07, Senate Bill 415 appropriated $75,000 to the other higher education member, Eastern

New Mexico University, to fund the distance education consortium operations.

HED indicates that this request for additional funding was not submitted by NMJC to HED for

review and is not included in the HED funding recommendation for FY08. However, HED

indicates that recurring funding per FY06 SB190 is currently in place for the amount of $47,500.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

PED indicates that SB 556 relates to HB 68, HB 201 and SB 209. It also relates to the executive

recommendation of $8,501,600 for IDEAL-NM in data processing appropriations and an

additional $2,247,400 included for IDEAL-NM in the HED budget.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

The consortium’s instructional training program allows for continued teacher trainings and

deliver of online courses from local sites and for student participation in and knowledge of

technology allow for greater postsecondary and workplace options.

IDEAL-NM will create a sustainable, statewide online support program that will allow public

education, higher education and state government agencies to better serve the needs of all New

Mexico learners. Institutes of higher education and state agencies may also benefit from the

enterprise learning management system discounts, and the enhanced host-site technology.

IDEAL-NM stands for Innovative, Digital, Education and Learning, New Mexico.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

PED indicates that the consortium may have to reduce the number courses delivered due to the

increasing costs of the technology infrastructure. Teachers and students may not benefit from

the support of higher educational trainings and services.

GM/csd