After increasing spending, lawmakers express frustration over NM child welfare trends

ESPAÑOLA — Despite increased funding in recent years, New Mexico child maltreatment rates increased last year and the state child welfare agency’s staff turnover remains higher than the national average.

Some legislators expressed frustration about the trends during a Wednesday committee hearing, citing low completion rates in voluntary programs like home visiting for new parents.

“We’re spending so much money and getting so little out of it,” said Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, during the meeting of the legislative Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee at Northern New Mexico College.

New Mexico has long struggled to address child welfare issues, and lawmakers have proposed bills in recent years seeking independent oversight of the Children, Youth and Families Department and other structural changes.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration has opposed such efforts, though the governor last year described the department as “dysfunctional” and ordered the creation of a new advisory council and office of innovation within CYFD.

However, a legislative analyst said Wednesday that CYFD has in recent years reduced the amount of public reports it publishes on child welfare issues.

“There are likely opportunities to strengthen oversight mechanisms,” Legislative Finance Committee analyst Rachel Mercer Garcia told lawmakers Wednesday.

In addition, some families are not made aware of a support plan being created for them after a hospital finds a baby who was exposed to illicit substances.

However, a CYFD spokesman disputed the claim of decreased reporting and said agency officials were not invited to participate in Wednesday’s hearing.

The child welfare agency also expects to see steady progress when it comes to reducing child neglect and deprivation cases under a new Family Services Division, CYFD spokesman Andrew Skobinsky said.

Amid an ongoing state revenue boom, spending on protective services for New Mexico children has grown by about $100 million over the last decade — to more than $200 million annually.

But the turnover rate for CYFD case workers has remained stubbornly high — it was about 34% as of last year — and the total number of protective services employees in New Mexico is at roughly the same level it was in 2017, according to legislative data.

In addition, CYFD will see its insurance premiums increase by $1.5 million in the coming fiscal year, after the state paid out more than $21 million in settlements dealing with abused and neglected children since 2021.

However, Skobinsky said CYFD Secretary Teresa Casados has signed off on 34 new hires in the last two weeks, describing the agency as a workplace with “significant opportunities” to make a difference.

‘What are we doing?’

Two attorneys involved with a 2020 settlement that resolved claims made by New Mexico foster care youth said Wednesday that CYFD and other state agencies are not enforcing some agreed-upon changes.

In part for that reason, the two sides are scheduled to return to arbitration later this year.

“We spent an enormous amount of time mediating a settlement the state immediately turned its back on,” attorney Sara Crecca said Wednesday.

Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, called the state’s child welfare trends “shameful” during Wednesday’s hearing.

“What are we doing?” Cervantes asked rhetorically at one point, while growing visibly emotional. “There’s nobody who’s more vulnerable (than children).”

Meanwhile, Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, referred to CYFD as the state’s “Hindenburg,” a reference to a doomed German airship.

“I feel like sometimes in these committees we’re just banging our heads against the wall,” Block added.