Legislators seek probe of CYFD over closed meetings

Three Republicans ask for formal opinion on whether task force violated law

Three state legislators are asking the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office to investigate whether the state Children, Youth and Families Department violated the Open Meetings Act by holding closed meetings of a task force.

The child protective services task force was created by a House Joint Memorial during the 2019 legislative session to come up recommendations for improving the department’s Protective Services Division policies.

Reps. Kelly Fajardo, R-Los Lunas; Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences; and David Gallegos, R-Eunice, sent a letter to Attorney General Hector Balderas, claiming the department has been exclusive and secretive when it comes to who can attend the meetings. They are asking for a formal opinion on whether the meetings violate the law.

Fajardo said Monday the task force represented an opportunity to “dive in” to the myriad problems that have plagued the agency for several administrations.

Foster families not being paid for their services, sometimes for years, was one of the issues the task force is supposed to address, Fajardo said.

She said she feels the department is putting on a “song and dance” so it can appear to be complying with the legislation but questioned whether it has any intention of seriously examining the issues.

“Unfortunately,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter, “CYFD decided to conduct these task force deliberations in a series of closed and private

meetings where the public and other interested parties were never notified or invited . ... In short, what stakeholders and other concerned citizens thought would be an open opportunity to discuss how to promote the safety and security of our state’s most vulnerable population was in reality a process dominated by secret meetings and unwanted public involvement.”

She said only one of three task force meetings have been open to the public, and one was moved from Albuquerque to Santa Fe with less than 24 hours advance notice, prohibiting several members of the task force from attending.

That meeting was ultimately canceled due to weather, she said, something that wouldn’t have happened had it been held in Albuquerque as planned.

Gallegos said he traveled more than 300 miles from his district in Lea County in southeast New

Mexico to Albuquerque for one of the meetings in December, only to be informed that he could not attend.

Jill Jones, a Hobbs foster parent, said she was en route to the same meeting and had driven for more than two hours when she got a call from Gallegos telling her should turn around because the meeting was closed to the public.

“CYFD needs a lot of light shined on it,” said Jones, who has fostered 11 children and adopted three. “It’s become parent protective services versus the child protective services it was created to be. They are no longer doing what’s in the best interest of the children, but that’s not what they want to hear so maybe that’s why it’s being closed.”

Jones said one of the biggest issues is that foster parents don’t have a voice when it comes to the fate of the children they foster.

“We know them better than anyone else, and we don’t get a say-so,” she said. “We’re never heard.”

Fajardo said she and the others decided to write the letter after hearing from task force members who said they’d reached out to Children, Youth and Families Secretary Brian Blalock with their concerns about the meetings and got no response.

In a statement emailed late Monday, the Children, Youth and Families Department issued a statement in response to the lawmakers’ complaints, defending closed-door meetings of the task force. “The New Mexico Attorney General and New Mexico Courts have made it clear similar task forces are not subject to Open Meetings Act (OMA) because they do not make binding decisions,” said the statement, sent by spokesman Charlie Moore-Pabst.

The statement said members of the public have been invited to “parallel listening sessions” and that the department “will continue to conduct these listening sessions as well as some public meetings of the task force.”

In a follow-up email, MoorePabst said, “The task force could choose as a body to close future meetings but our plan is for most to be open.”

Blalock — who did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday — wrote an op-ed for The New Mexican in October in which he said the agency “welcomed” the memorial creating the task force.

“I am thrilled with the diversity and range of experiences we were able to gather for this task force and look forward to working with members throughout the coming months to help improve relationships and better support our foster families,” he wrote. “All meetings will be open to the public.”

Asked Monday how soon the agency could determine whether CYFD had violated the Open Meetings Act and if so, what the possible consequences might be, Attorney General’s Office spokesman Matt Baca replied in an email:

“Our office will take immediate action to review this request, however we strongly advise the Legislature to mandate that study committees are subject to transparency laws.”

In the past, some meetings improperly noticed or closed have been repeated to comply with the law.