Funds could help back social workers, lawyers

CONCERNING THE extra $1.2 billion that is supposedly available for next fiscal year, it is interesting that neither the Rio Grande Foundation nor any of the persons sampled in the Journal poll considered taking care of the social workers and Children’s Court attorneys who work in the trenches caring for neglected and abused children. I provide legal representation for a number of those children.

Particularly here in Bernalillo County, it has been the case for years now that despite much higher caseloads following the death of Omaree Varela in December 2013, the case workers are, based on any national standard, massively overworked. They are also way underpaid. And there are 10 CYFD attorney positions allotted to handle all the cases in the Bernalillo County Children’s Court, which adjudicates 40 percent of all the neglect and abuse cases in the state. Exactly five attorneys are now covering all those cases. Again, because of the relatively low pay, few attorneys are interested in doing this very hard work.

The result is that case workers are burned out and often resign within two years of beginning their service to the children and families. The department then expresses its surprise at the high turnover rates. And the department attorneys are so overloaded with work that non-emergency matters are backed up in long lines, delaying permanency for these children and families.

Neither the governor nor the Legislature have ever addressed this crisis in any significant way. Rather, periodically a child dies, and then the department blames the overworked social workers, and then everyone moves on. A chunk of that $1.2 billion needs to go to fix this problem.

JAMES STARZYNSKI Corrales