129th MAINE LEGISLATURE
		LD 662		LR 1657(02)
	An Act To Count Study Abroad toward Secondary School Credit
	Fiscal Note for Bill as Amended by Committee Amendment " "
	Committee: Education and Cultural Affairs
	Fiscal Note Required: Yes
Fiscal Note
Potential State Mandate - Unfunded
State Mandates
	Required Activity				Unit Affected	Local Cost
	Requires local school boards to adopt a policy on awarding credit to students who have studied abroad.				School	Moderate statewide
	The required local activities in this bill may represent a state mandate pursuant to the Constitution of Maine. If the bill does require a local unit of government to expand or modify its activities so as to necessitate additional expenditures from local revenue, the state mandate provisions of the Constitution of Maine require either: (1) General Fund appropriations be provided to fund at least 90% of any additional necessitated local costs of the mandate; or (2) a Mandate Preamble be added to the bill and two-thirds of the members of each House vote to exempt the mandate from the funding requirement. If the bill does represent a state mandate and neither one of these actions occurs, the local units of government will not be required to implement the mandated activities.
Fiscal Detail and Notes
	To the extent that the requirements included in this bill are already in place, the impact of this legislation on school administrative units is not expected to be significant. The impact to those school administrative units that have not put the requirements of this legislation into place may be greater but are still not expected to be significant.
	Additional costs to the Department of Education to issue the required administrative letter can be absorbed within existing budgeted resources.