130th MAINE LEGISLATURE
		LD 1186		LR 1443(02)
	An Act To Require a Course Regarding the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Maine To Be Taught to High School Seniors
	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 instruction regarding the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Maine in grade 12.				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
	The United States Constitution and the Constitution of Maine are included in the performance expectations of the civics and government content area under the social studies component of the system of learning results across multiple grade spans.  However, the decision as to what grades this subject matter will be taught is made by local school administrative units (SAUs).  Requiring this subject to be taught in grade 12 may result in increased costs to those SAUs that currently do not currently have a course in this subject developed for that grade level.