CYFD reform efforts inch forward in the Roundhouse

SANTA FE — One by one, New Mexico’s youth, education, health and workforce secretaries lined up in a House committee room Friday to speak against an effort to overhaul the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department.

Despite the opposition, the House Health and Human Services Committee voted 9-1 to enact House Joint Resolution 5, a measure that would allow voters to remove CYFD from the governor’s oversight and instead create a five-member independent commission to hire a CYFD executive director by July 2027.

It’s not the only CYFD reform effort the committee passed Friday. Members also voted 9-1 to pass House Bill 5, which would create an Office of the Child Advocate administratively attached to the New Mexico Department of Justice, formerly the Attorney General’s Office.

“We need to do something now. We cannot continue to wait and put this off,” said HJR5 bill sponsor Rep. Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque.

New Mexico has long struggled to address child welfare issues, and lawmakers have increased spending on CYFD in recent years in an attempt to hire more social workers. However, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has opposed efforts to increase outside oversight of the agency, instead ordering the creation of a new advisory council and office of innovation within CYFD.

Both pieces of legislation still need to cross over to the Senate side of the Roundhouse before getting a chance at passage, though only House Bill 5 would require the governor’s signature. The efforts have failed in past years.

“CYFD welcomes accountability, oversight and partnership in improving CYFD to better serve New Mexicans, but an Office of Child Advocate attached to the Department of Justice just doesn’t achieve this,” CYFD Secretary Teresa Casados told the committee.

Similarly, Deputy Secretary of Protective Services and Juvenile Justice Valerie Sandoval, speaking on behalf of Casados, said other legislative proposals — not HJR5 — would help solve the agency’s challenges.

“Removing CYFD as a Cabinet-level agency would hinder collaboration with key state agencies essential to child welfare, education and health,” she said.

She brought up a letter child welfare advocates Judith Meltzer and Kevin Ryan sent earlier this week to Casados and Tara Ford, counsel on a settlement in a lawsuit known as Kevin S., which sought reform of New Mexico’s child welfare system.

“In our view, child welfare services cannot be successfully operated in a vacuum. … Commission-led governance is very likely, in our view, to exacerbate many of the problems we have documented in New Mexico,” Meltzer and Ryan wrote, both of whom were dubbed “co-neutrals” as part of the settlement to help guide reform efforts.

Speaking as a bill expert, Alvin Sallee, a foster parent and professor emeritus for New Mexico State University’s social work program, said HJR5 would remove politics from CYFD, eliminating a secretary appointee coming at the whim of any gubernatorial administration.

Under the resolution, the five commission members would be appointed staggered six-year terms by the governor, the president pro tempore of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority floor leader of the Senate and the minority floor leader of the House of Representatives.

Sallee compared the setup to that of the state’s Public Regulation Commission, which recently went through an overhaul to become a three-member appointed commission, all serving staggered six-year terms.Rep. Alan Martinez, R-Bernalillo, said he was dead set against HJR5 until the only ones who spoke in opposition were state Cabinet or deputy secretaries. Secretaries Mariana Padilla of the Public Education Department, who still is awaiting Senate confirmation; Kari Armijo of the Health Care Authority; Elizabeth Groginsky of the Early Childhood Education and Care Department; and Sarita Nair of the Department of Workforce Solutions also spoke against HJR5.

“It says a lot about circling the wagons and trying to protect the status quo,” Martinez said.

Rep. Nicole Chavez, R-Albuquerque, voted against HJR5. She told the Journal after the committee she doesn’t believe the measure would substantially improve the department; it “shifts the blame for CYFD’s ineffectiveness from the Governor’s Office to a politically appointed body.”

“I have appreciated Secretary Casados’ involvement and participation during this legislative session and hope we can reform our (Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act) and place safeguards to ensure New Mexico’s children are protected,” she said. “Our state has invested millions of dollars following the Kevin S. lawsuit and yet CYFD continues to fail our children.”

Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, was the sole vote against HB5. She asked a few clarifying questions on the bill during the discussion but didn’t explain her “no” vote afterward. She’s also a sponsor of HJR5.