CYFD civil rights settlements $21 million since 2021

The state Children, Youth and Families Department has been hit with a 36% increase in state liability premiums after shelling out more than $13.8 million in settlements this year for failing to protect abused or neglected children in the agency’s care.

The payouts in the first eight months of 2024 represent more than half of the total $21 million in CYFD settlements since July 2021, according to a new state dashboard.

The latest settlements involve $1.4 million paid Aug. 23 on behalf of two foster children who spent eight months in the Raton home of a licensed foster parent who is accused of sexually molesting one of the girls while her 8-year-old sister watched.

Santa Fe lawyer Kate Ferlic, who filed the lawsuit, told the Journal on Friday attorneys bring such cases to “hopefully improve the system for the next generation of foster children.”

Asked whether the Raton case spurred any changes in CYFD practices, agency spokesman Andrew Skobinsky responded with a general statement on Friday.

“Our priority with any placement is the safety of the children/youth in need of care,” he said in an email. CYFD conducts a comprehensive pre-approval process of prospective foster parents, their families and “their social circles,” he wrote.

After children are placed in a foster home, CYFD provides ongoing training, follow-up, home visitations and needs assessments to ensure the viability of the home, Skobinsky wrote.

The civil lawsuit alleging negligence by CYFD was filed in 2021 after the girls returned to their father from the foster home of Carlos Cordova, his wife, Yolanda, and their adult daughter, Kristie Cordova.

The abuse disclosures prompted the filing of criminal charges against Carlos Cordova, who was convicted in June 2023 on one count of criminal sexual contact of a minor under the age of 13. Cordova is awaiting trial on a second count of criminal sexual penetration after a Colfax County jury deadlocked on that charge.

Cordova’s defense attorney in the case contended the girls were highly sexualized before being placed in the Cordova home. Prosecutors stated that Cordova, now 68, admitted to having been accused of child sexual abuse in the past, but had no prior charges.

The settlements of $700,000 to each of the girls are posted on the state’s Sunshine Portal. Releases signed in the cases state that CYFD admitted no wrongdoing.

Data from the state Legislative Finance Committee shows the cost of CYFD’s liability insurance coverage increased $1.4 million this fiscal year, from $4.1 million to $5.5 million.

The state General Services Department, which pays for attorneys and costs of defending such cases, bases liability insurance premiums on an agency’s loss history.

But CYFD’s premium increase isn’t the steepest enacted this fiscal year, according to the LFC report issued last month.

GSD hiked the state Corrections Department’s premium more than 71%, while increasing the University of New Mexico rates more than 67% and New Mexico State University’s rates 43%.

The LFC’s new interactive dashboard shows that since July 2021, the state has paid out more than $90 million to settle claims against all state agencies, which include civil rights and medical malpractice cases. The dashboard is based on data from the Sunshine Portal.

More than a year ago, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vowed to transform the state child welfare system, which she called “broken.” Secretary Teresa Casados, the third CYFD Cabinet secretary since 2019, has emphasized prevention and providing services to at-risk families as a way to stem the state’s high child maltreatment rate.

The agency currently faces high staff turnover, too few foster families, and an increasing number of children taken into state custody because of findings of neglect or abuse.

Court records show the young girls in the Raton case were no longer with their biological parents, and had been adopted.

But CYFD removed them from that home in 2019 after finding issues with their adopted father’s home, according to court records.

In January 2019, CYFD initially placed them in the care of one foster family “where their health and welfare improved markedly,” according to the civil lawsuit. But by May 2019, CYFD changed the foster care arrangement, placing them with the Cordova foster family.

Cordova previously worked for the state Department of Transportation, and his wife had medical issues, court records showed. He told Raton police he considered the girls like his “granddaughters.”

“If CYFD had conducted a proper review of the Cordova household, it could have uncovered that Carlos Cordova had been accused of sexual misconduct before and that he was at high risk of becoming a perpetrator of sexual violence,” the lawsuit states.

In one Raton police interview, the younger girl identified as K.L. said the foster father had a “crush on her sister” and would take the older girl, then 11, to his bedroom.

K.L. said she would sneak up to the bedroom and hear what they were doing, and one time she walked into the bedroom where she saw the sexual abuse occurring, the officer reported in an arrest warrant affidavit.

She saw her sister “naked” and she was “scared, scared, scared,” the officer quoted the younger girl as saying.

Cordova is alleged to have warned both girls not to tell anyone about the sexual assaults. They went back to their adoptive father in January 2020 on a trial home visit, court records show. The father then alerted CYFD of their allegations.