New CYFD secretary says she's committed to bringing stability amid choppy waters

SANTA FE — Just four days into her new job leading New Mexico’s troubled child welfare agency, Valerie Sandoval said she’s committed to stabilizing the Children, Youth and Families Department in the coming months.

Sandoval, a former CYFD deputy secretary who was named acting secretary last week, said she plans to accelerate agency efforts to improve staffing levels and reduce social worker case loads.

“I think that’s always been my goal, to make CYFD stable and consistent and to build a workforce that will thrive whether I’m here or the next person,” Sandoval told reporters Thursday.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Sandoval as acting CYFD secretary last week upon the abrupt retirement of former secretary Teresa Casados. Sandoval is a high school volleyball coach in Santa Fe who has worked for the agency since 2016.

With the official start of her new job duties on Monday, Sandoval became the fourth long-term CYFD secretary since Lujan Grisham took office in 2019.

She said she plans to lean on a new CYFD leadership team that includes Kathy Kunkel, a former state health secretary, and Brenda Donald, a consultant who previously worked as Washington, D.C.’s deputy mayor for health and human services.

Donald will fill the newly created post of CYFD chief operating officer under a contract that will pay her more than $115 per hour. For her part, Kunkel will return to New Mexico from her home in Vermont to work as a deputy secretary tasked with overseeing the agency’s efforts to comply with a 2020 settlement agreement. She will be paid a salary of roughly $171,000 per year, according to the Governor’s Office.

The agreement, known as the Kevin S. settlement, obligated the state to follow a series of standards intended to help abused and neglected children. An arbitrator assigned to oversee the settlement recently ordered CYFD to approve and license 244 new treatment foster care placements by the end of this year, among other directives.

Kunkel said CYFD will soon be implementing steps ordered by the settlement agreement, including hiring and retaining more staffers. The agency currently has a 24% vacancy rate, even after recent rapid hiring events.

“People are applying,” Kunkel said. “We need to streamline our process for getting them in and then we need to make sure we give them the support to stay.”

Lujan Grisham has expressed dissatisfaction with CYFD’s performance in recent years, while publicly defending her appointed Cabinet secretaries. She said this week that Casados had previously agreed to delay her retirement, even while juggling family responsibilities that include taking care of her aging parents.

The Democratic governor, who will leave office at the end of 2026, has also largely rebuffed lawmakers’ efforts to mandate more outside oversight of the agency, saying such proposals could lead to conflict and would negatively impact CYFD’s ability to hire more workers.

But some lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — have grown increasingly impatient with CYFD officials in recent years, citing stubbornly high child mistreatment rates and a string of high-profile child abuse cases.

Sandoval said Thursday she understands the public outrage about cases like that of the 4-month-old boy who was born addicted to fentanyl and died in his parents’ Albuquerque home in June.

“These cases are tragic for us too,” Sandoval said. “They hit me hard every single time.”

But she said the new CYFD leadership team would be as transparent as possible, while relying on its expertise and the steps outlined under the settlement agreement.

“We’re going to make a better child welfare system,” said Sandoval, “using those tools that we have.”