A. Upon annual review and approval of a school district's educational technology plan, the bureau shall determine a separate distribution from the educational technology fund for each school district.

B. On or before July 31 of each year, the bureau shall distribute money in the educational technology fund directly to each school district in an amount equal to ninety percent of the school district's estimated adjusted entitlement calculated pursuant to Subsection C of this section. A school district's unadjusted entitlement is that portion of the total amount of the annual appropriation that the projected membership bears to the projected membership of the state. Kindergarten membership shall be calculated on a one-half full-time-equivalent basis.

C. A school district's estimated adjusted entitlement shall be calculated by the bureau using the following procedure:

(1) a base allocation is calculated by multiplying the total annual appropriation by seventy-five thousandths percent;

(2) the estimated adjusted entitlement amount for a school district whose unadjusted entitlement is at or below the base allocation shall be equal to the base allocation. For a school district whose unadjusted entitlement is higher than the base allocation, the estimated adjusted entitlement shall be calculated pursuant to Paragraphs (3) through (6) of this subsection;

(3) the total projected membership in those school districts that will receive the base allocation pursuant to Paragraph (2) of this subsection is subtracted from the total projected state membership;

(4) the total of the estimated adjusted entitlement amounts that will be distributed to those school districts receiving the base allocation pursuant to Paragraph (2) of this subsection is subtracted from the total appropriation;

(5) the projected membership for the district is divided by the result calculated pursuant to Paragraph (3) of this subsection; and

(6) the estimated adjusted entitlement amount for the school district equals the number calculated pursuant to Paragraph (5) of this subsection multiplied by the value calculated pursuant to Paragraph (4) of this subsection.

D. On or before January 30 of each year, the bureau shall recompute each adjusted entitlement using the final funded membership for that year and, without making any additional reductions, shall allocate the balance of the annual appropriation adjusting for any over- or under-projection of membership.

E. A school district receiving funding pursuant to the Technology for Education Act is responsible for the purchase, distribution, use and maintenance of educational technology.

F. As used in this section, "membership" means the total enrollment of qualified students, as defined in the Public School Finance Act [Chapter 22, Article 8 NMSA 1978], on the current roll of class or school on a specified day. The current roll is established by the addition of original entries and reentries minus withdrawals. Withdrawal of students, in addition to students formally withdrawn from the public school, includes students absent from the public school for as many as ten consecutive school days.

History: Laws 1994, ch. 96, § 9; 2000, ch. 89, § 1; 2003, ch. 147, § 11; 2004, ch. 125, § 5; 2005, ch. 274, § 3.

The 2005 amendment, effective April 6, 2005, in Subsection C(6), provided that the estimated adjusted entitlement amount for the school district equals the number calculated pursuant to Subsection C(5) multiplied by the value calculated pursuant to Subsection C(6); and deleted former Subsections C(7) through (13).

The 2004 amendment, effective May 19, 2004, amended Subsection C to rewrite Paragraph (7) to substitute for "legislative council service" the "department of finance and administration" and to add at the end of the paragraph "An appropriation made in a fiscal year shall be deemed to be accepted by a school district unless, prior to July 15 of the fiscal year following the appropriation, the district notifies the department of finance and administration and the public education department that the district is rejecting the appropriation" and to amend Paragraph (10) to substitute "the immediately two preceding" for "prior" preceding "fiscal years".

The 2003 amendment, effective April 4, 2003, rewrote Subsection C and inserted "without making any additional reductions" preceding "shall allocate" in Subsection D.

The 2000 amendment, effective May 17, 2000, in Subsection B, inserted "adjusted" following "district's estimated", substituted "calculated pursuant to Subsection C of this section" for "as determined by the projected membership for the school year" in the first sentence and inserted "unadjusted" following "school district's" in the second sentence; added present Subsection C and redesignated the remaining subsections accordingly; and inserted "adjusted" preceding "entitlement" in present Subsection D.