A. The "Indian education fund" is created in the state treasury. The fund consists of appropriations, gifts, grants and donations and income from investment of the fund. Money in the fund shall not revert. The fund shall be administered by the department, and money in the fund is appropriated to the department to distribute awards to support the Indian Education Act. B. The department shall ensure that funds appropriated from the Indian education fund shall be used for the purposes stated in the Indian Education Act and shall not be used to correct for previous reductions of program services. C. The department shall develop procedures and rules for the award of money from the fund. Disbursement of the fund shall be made by warrant of the department of finance and administration pursuant to vouchers signed by the secretary of public education. History: Laws 2003, ch. 151, § 8; 2007, ch. 295, § 7; 2007, ch. 296, § 7. The 2007 amendment, effective June 15, 2007, added Subsection B. Laws 2007, ch. 295, § 7 enacted identical amendments to this section. The section was set out as amended by Laws 2007, ch. 296, § 7. See 12-1-8 NMSA 1978. The New Mexico public education department may distribute funds from the Indian education fund to tribally controlled and bureau of Indian education schools within the state. — The legislature has instructed that the Indian education fund must be used in support of the Indian Education Act's (Act) purposes, some of which include ensuring equitable and culturally relevant learning environments, educational opportunities and culturally relevant instructional materials for American Indian students enrolled in public schools, providing for the study, development and implementation of educational systems that positively affect the educational success of American Indian students, providing the means for a formal government-to-government relationship between the state and New Mexico tribes and the development of relationships with the education division of the bureau of Indian affairs and other entities that serve American Indian students, and establishing collaborative efforts among numerous entities to work together to find ways to improve educational opportunities for American Indian students, and therefore, because of the collaborative nature of the Act as well as the Act's numerous purposes, the public education department's (PED) distribution of money from the Indian education fund to tribally controlled schools within pueblos, tribes, and nations as well as to bureau of Indian education (BIE) schools within the state is a permissible use of the funds. Moreover, no state constitutional provision prohibits the PED from distributing money from the Indian education fund to tribal and BIE schools in New Mexico where the state receives concrete and measurable benefits in exchange for the funds and receives assistance in meeting its directives and objectives under the Act. 2024 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 24-14.
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