Lawyers, expert testify to Senate panel: New Mexico child-welfare system still lacks staff, placements and services

MANCHESTER — Attorneys for the Kevin S. plaintiffs and a child psychiatrist told the Senate Judiciary Committee that New Mexico’s child-protective service system continues to fall short on core capacities: trained caseworkers, foster placements and timely health and behavioral services.

At a lengthy Judiciary Committee hearing, Dr. George Davis, a child psychiatrist who has worked with children in CYFD custody for decades, and Mike Hart, an attorney for the Kevin S. plaintiffs, described the operational gaps the final settlement agreement (the Kevin S. FSA) was designed to fix and the arbitration the plaintiffs triggered after missed benchmarks.

The plaintiffs’ legal team described the child-welfare operation as a “three-legged stool”: investigators and permanency workers to manage cases; placement workers and foster families to provide substitute caregiving; and an adequate network of health and treatment services. “More than anything else… a child needs a primary caretaker,” Dr. Davis said, describing the core developmental need that the system must supply when family care is unavailable.

Hart summarized the case’s trajectory: the 100‑page federal complaint known as Kevin S. led to a negotiated final settlement agreement with deadlines and benchmarks overseen by two nationally recognized co‑neutral experts. When the state missed core deliverables related to workforce, foster-parent recruitment and timely health checks, the plaintiffs followed the FSA’s dispute process and triggered arbitration. The arbitrator heard weeks of testimony in November 2024 and issued a written decision addressing four core issues, Hart said.

Committee members pressed for specifics and next steps. Senators asked whether enforcement mechanisms — including judicial review of the arbitrator’s decision, contempt procedures or appointment of a receiver — could force faster compliance if the state fails to meet the FSA terms. Hart told the committee that the arbitration decision may be taken to district court for enforcement and that the FSA provides dispute-resolution steps that can ultimately result in court oversight.

Speakers and experts at the hearing repeatedly emphasized how CYFD’s problems are interlocking: high vacancy and turnover among caseworkers; insufficient numbers of trained foster families (and the need to recruit caregivers with specific skills for trauma-exposed children); and limited, hard-to-access provider networks for timely pediatric and behavioral assessments. Hart and Dr. Davis cited CYFD materials showing roughly 2,000 children in custody at a point in time and roughly 3,000 children touched by the system during a year, numbers they said fluctuate and have been affected by litigation and policy changes.

Both witnesses said the FSA and the co-neutrals’ reports provide road maps for reform. The co‑neutrals, the plaintiffs’ team and an independent arbitrator have all identified the same categories of remedies, the panel was told, but progress has been uneven and, in some measures, the state’s performance has slipped in recent reports.

Committee members suggested a variety of policy levers — increased pay and recruitment incentives for caseworkers, expanded stipends and supports for foster families, public-awareness campaigns and commissionbacks to study nonprofit recruitment models used in other states. Witnesses described a range of practical obstacles: legal limits on offering certain kinds of recruiting bonuses, the need for targeted training, and the time required to build validated case-level data and a sustained provider network.

The chair said the hearing was intended to give the Legislature time to examine options and to invite CYFD leadership back with the governor’s legislative proposals. No formal committee vote occurred on legislation during the hearing.

The hearing transcript and expert testimony repeatedly returned to one practical point: without simultaneous progress on staffing, placements and services, child-protection reforms cannot reliably deliver safe, timely care for children placed into custody.