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

SPONSOR Moore

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/26/06

HB 73

SHORT TITLE Mesalands Community College Programs

SB

ANALYST Earp

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

$335.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 73 appropriates $335,000 from the general fund to Mesalands Community College

(MCC) to support the college’s intercollegiate athletic program, archaeological programs and

dinosaur museum.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The bill provides $200,000 for intercollegiate athletic programs $135,000 for the college’s ar-

chaeological programs and the dinosaur museum. These appropriations would be recurring ex-

penses to the general fund. Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of

fiscal year 2007 shall revert to the general fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

MCC submitted requests for these programs to the Higher Education Department for review.

However, HED has not included these programs in its fiscal year 2007 funding recommenda-

tions.

House Bill 73 – Page

2

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

The appropriations proposed in this bill would augment funding for existing program at MCC.

No significant additional administrative impact is anticipated.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

Information provided by HED indicates that a rodeo team was introduced as Mesalands’ first in-

tercollegiate sport in the fall semester of 1998. The college is a member of the National Intercol-

legiate Rodeo Association and competes in the southwest region, which includes Eastern New

Mexico and West Texas. The college team is co-ed and competes in rodeos in the fall and spring.

Students must meet national eligibility guidelines and be enrolled full-time in order to participate

in the college rodeos throughout the region. The top athletes from the region compete in the Col-

lege National Finals Rodeo in June each year.

MCC's Dinosaur Museum opened in the spring of 2000. The facility houses approximately

10,000 square feet of exhibit space, a spacious, well-equipped paleontology/geology laboratory,

a classroom, offices, and a retail store. Classes for their natural science degree programs, with an

emphasis in paleontology and geology, are held there, and all fossils found on course field trips

are sorted and prepped in the lab.

Field research conducted by MCC’s natural sciences classes has already unearthed three previ-

ously unknown life species in Quay County, home of the college. Every summer, one-week field

courses are offered to the public.

DE/mt