CYFD chief asks for more money; lawmakers want more input

Repeat cases of child maltreatment dropped in 14 New Mexico counties over the past year, but rose in hot spots such as Bernalillo, Santa Fe, and Lea counties, according to data released Tuesday from the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

The overall repeat maltreatment rate of just under 15 percent statewide was a slight improvement over the prior year, said CYFD Secretary Teresa Casados at a legislative budget hearing in Santa Fe on Tuesday. Yet, the national rate is still about 9 percent.

Hiring is up, but the agency is still wrestling with high staff turnover and a chronic shortage of foster homes.

CYFD, which is seeking a 6.1% increase in its operating budget that begins July 1, is asking for $37.8 million for 101 positions to meet caseload standards and to open a CYFD training academy. The agency plans to give licensed social workers on staff a temporary 10 percent salary increase to help with retention.

But funding alone isn’t the answer, several legislators told Casados.

The strained relationship between the administration and the Legislature over how to remedy the problems dominated the hearing on Tuesday.

“Two years ago, the exec told everybody, we’re going to fix this on our own, don’t change any laws, and the Legislature stayed silent ... and (said) we’ll give them a chance to fix that,” said state Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup. “We had the money and we had the opportunity to make the change and it didn’t happen.”

With Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s second term expiring on Dec. 31, 2026, Muñoz told CYFD cabinet secretary Teresa Casados, “Your days are numbered, we’ve got two years and how much change can you make? Let’s fix what we have. If we don’t work together to fix this, it’s going to get worse.”

Muñoz noted that exit surveys of CYFD employees in 2023 revealed the most frequently reported reason for leaving was “lack of support from leadership” at 19%. Eight percent cited being “overworked.” Another 8% said they had new opportunities, and 7% cited “too many caseloads/backlog.”

“We’ve strengthened the pay (to try to keep workers),” said Muñoz, who chairs the Legislative Finance Committee. Since 2000, he added, “the pay scale went up 37.7%.”

Muñoz said he doesn’t blame Casados for the leadership issues, noting she is the third CYFD secretary in five years and took office last year. But he said, the agency needs stability and should instill in its supervisors the need to communicate better.

Casados announced her agency will be starting a new program, called Foster Families Plus, for children in state custody who need more intensive care than regular foster families can provide. The pay rate will be enhanced for such families, and CYFD hopes the new category of foster homes will help the agency eliminate the need for hard-to-place children to temporarily live in CYFD offices, she said.

CYFD created five new positions to better support and retain foster families, but even though the openings have been posted, Casados said no one has applied. CYFD has 250 job openings agency-wide, with 155 in protective services.

With the aim of preventing neglect and abuse, CYFD’s new Family Services section has provided help to more than 1,650 families this year, but Casados said, “All of this work is concerning if our maltreatment numbers don’t decline.”

The percentage of children who experience repeat maltreatment went down in Sierra, Curry, Cibola, Valencia, Grant/Catron, Eddy, Dona Ana, Sandoval, McKinley, Lincoln, Otero and San Juan counties, but the rest of New Mexico’s 33 counties showed single digit increases. Bernalillo County’s repeat cases went from 15.9 percent to 18.2 percent over the past year.

CYFD still hasn’t been able to find enough suitable placements so that youths in state custody don’t have to be housed temporarily in CYFD offices. In response to a question from state Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, Casados said a total of 17 youths spent the night Monday in a CYFD office.

“As we all acknowledge it is unacceptable, it’s dangerous and it’s creating and causing some of the challenges that are affecting kids and affecting staff,” Small said of the office stays, which have been used for several years statewide because of a lack of suitable foster homes.

Small said he’d like CYFD “to robustly look to leverage a partnership with the Legislature on legislative changes. That’s not been the approach used for the majority of this administration. ...”

Casados said CYFD in the future will be looking to replace some federal funding with state general funds.

But Small said he doesn’t “feel comfortable making that a recurring budget item before there is an appropriate approach (involving the Legislature). Saying no to those policy proposals from both chambers and both parties (by saying) ‘No, we don’t want that,’ fundamentally changes the budget conversation.”