On the agenda: Reforming CYFD
Ideas include creating a commission to oversee the beleaguered agency
Lawmakers impatient and angry about the “failures” of the state Children, Youth and Families Department are on tap to consider some bold reforms this session, such as creating a $27 million family services division or setting up a new commission to oversee the troubled agency.
The proposals range from a governor’s request for $24.7 million to create a new family services division at CYFD to asking voters in November to approve a constitutional amendment that would remove much of the governor’s control over the agency.
What can be accomplished in a 30-day session that begins Tuesday, and legislators’ appetite for major reforms, is still unclear.
Teresa Casados, newly-named CYFD Cabinet secretary, told a legislative panel on Friday that she and her staff have been working for months to “make sure the agency is not status quo.”
“We have heard you, we heard the community,” she said, “we’ve heard loud and clear that continuing to do the work that we do in the same way we do it is not providing us the outcomes we were expecting to be seen for our families and children.”
Casados wants a new “family services division” as a way to focus on families and their needs to prevent situations that lead to abuse and neglect, which sometimes leads to removal of children from their homes for placement in foster care. That has resulted at times in temporarily keeping youths in CYFD offices because there are no places to house them.
CYFD already provides such services along with investigating child maltreatment, but sometimes offering families help is secondary to determining whether abuse or neglect has occurred, she said.
Another request in the executive budget underscores the problems
at the agency, which was created in 1992.
Legislators are being asked for a $20 million special appropriation for legal settlements of claims brought against CYFD.
Some large settlements of claims of children killed or hurt after CYFD intervention or lack of intervention are expected this year, and Casados told the House Appropriations and Finance Committee on Friday that state Risk Management, which oversees the defense of such claims for state agencies, hasn’t had the money to pay some CYFD settlements.
“I believe they depleted their fund,” Casados said. She said lawsuits that will be settled go back to the early days of the current administration or earlier. Between fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2022, the state has paid out nearly $11 million to settle civil rights claims against the agency, according to the Legislative Finance Committee.
The LFC’s most recent report card for the agency stated that New Mexico consistently ranks among the top six states for repeat maltreatment of children occurring within 12 months of an initial allegation. The LFC didn’t recommend a new family services division, instead focusing on creating evidence-based options to reduce and prevent maltreatment.
Casados said the new division would be part of a reorganization that would pull resources from other areas of CYFD, such as juvenile justice and behavioral health, to help at-risk struggling families facing food insecurity, lack of transportation or child care.
Rep. Gail Armstrong, R-Magdelena, told Casados, “I’m getting impatient with CYFD and I truly would not want your job.”
Other legislators on the committee seemed apprehensive about a new division.
“The reality is, and it’s unfair, but you’re facing many, many members who are very, very unhappy; some, I think, have described it as angry,” said Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, told Casados. “I have a hard time with giving more responsibility, expanding the mission even more, when frankly, year after year after year, what we’ve had is failure out of this department.”
Montoya said he and other legislators have to face their constituents at home after each session, and they ask, “What did you do about CYFD? What did you do?”
Last year, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham promised a “transformation” of the agency, and said she would undertake a nationwide search for a new Cabinet secretary. Casados, her chief operating officer, has been filling in as interim secretary since April. Just recently, Casados was named permanent secretary.
“I didn’t take it lightly when I was asked to take on the CYFD position full time,” she told the committee. She said she has concentrated on looking at the structure of the agency and “removing” barriers.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, is sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment to create a commission with an executive director to oversee the agency. The members of the commission would include one person nominated by the governor, the speaker of the House and the Senate speaker pro tem. Each would serve six-year terms that overlap.
“I just think it improves transparency and improves accountability,” he said. It would be comprised of professionals, “so you have some confidence that they know what they’re doing.”
Including Casados, the agency has had three Cabinet secretaries just since Lujan Grisham took office in 2019, he noted.
“So who is going to relocate here for two years under this administration when a new administration is going to bring in their own team as long as it’s part of the Cabinet?” he said.
Ortiz y Pino said a CYFD commission would provide continuity while improving morale.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to work in a department that shifts like that every few years or every year or two. This would resurrect the reputation of the department in the public’s esteem. The public has literally lost all confidence in CYFD.”
But Rep. Tara Jaramillo, D-Socorro, said she hoped Casados would consider an ombudsman for the agency to independently take complaints and make recommendations.
Creating a new commission, Jaramillo added, “to me, is like taking a bulldozer to do surgery.”