Fiscal impact reports (FIRs) are prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) for standing finance

committees of the NM Legislature. The LFC does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of these reports

if they are used for other purposes.

Current FIRs (in HTML & Adobe PDF formats) are a vailable on the NM Legislative Website (legis.state.nm.us).

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

SPONSOR Boitano

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/23/08

HB

SHORT TITLE Family Impact Statements on Certain Bills

SJM 26

ANALYST Cox

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Joint Memorial 26 requests that New Mexico State University’s Family Preservation

Institute be requested to prepare family impact statements on a regular basis on legislation it

believes may affect, either positively or negatively, families in New Mexico and that it make

those family impact statements available to the legislature in coordination with the Legislative

Council Service.

This Joint Memorial further requests that copies of this memorial be delivered to the Family

Preservation Institute at New Mexico State University and the Director of the Legislative

Council Service.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

This Senate Joint Memorial states:

•

The family is the basic social and economic unit of society, serving as the primary source

of values and education for children and as the catalyst for the development of

community and national interests; and

•

families generally are able to determine for themselves how best to promote better family

functioning; and

•

quality family life enhances employee productivity and reduces turnover and absenteeism

in school and the workplace; and

•

the state has a role in supporting and strengthening the healthy functioning of families by

coordinating services and developing policies that support and strengthen families; and

•

policymakers should be sensitive to the ethnic diversity of New Mexico and cognizant of

differences between rural and urban families and the difficulties rural families have in

accessing services; and

•

family impact analysis has been employed since the 1980s to evaluate the impact of

various public policies on families; and

Senate Joint Memorial 26 – Page

2

•

policymakers should consider the impact on families when setting policy, taking care to

be sensitive to diversity in family needs and dynamics and to the desire and ability of

family members to care for their children, elderly relatives or other family members; and

•

policies should promote the opportunity for family members to be together for better

family functioning; and

•

policies should promote work and community environments that ensure that a family can

meet its health, educational, social and economic responsibilities and reinforce the family

as the constant in people's lives; and

•

the family preservation institute at New Mexico State University is uniquely qualified to

assess the impact of various proposed policies on families.

FISCAL IMPACT

There will be an operating budget of an unknown amount to implement the provisions of this

joint memorial.

PRC/bb