Legislative Finance staff outlines New Mexico's child-welfare pipeline, timeliness and substantiation challenges

Carly Malone, an analyst assigned to child welfare work at the Legislative Finance Committee, opened the subcommittee's briefing with a step-by-step description of how reports move through New Mexico's child welfare system and where delays and resource gaps typically appear.

Malone said state law gives every person a duty to report reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect and that those reports arrive through CYFD's statewide Sky hotline. "The Sky reports on a monthly basis are typically in the low thousands," she said, adding that roughly half of calls are screened in for investigation and half are screened out. Malone summarized federal fiscal year 2023 data shown on staff slides: "over 37,000 referrals were made to CYFD; about 19,000 were screened in for investigation and about 18,500 were screened out," with roughly 5,600 cases ultimately determined to be victims of neglect or abuse.

The committee heard that investigations are statutorily required to be completed within 45 days, with supervisors allowed a single 30-day extension for good cause. Malone said about one-third of investigations are overdue and that only about 20–25% of completed investigations are substantiated. "There are often 1,500 to 2,000 investigations completed monthly," she said.

Members raised questions about what "initiated" means versus when a worker has "eyes on" a child; Malone clarified that initiation means a caseworker is assigned and begins fieldwork, including efforts to contact the child and family. Valerie Tablach of CYFD explained the agency conducts "diligent efforts" to locate families—multiple attempts, outreach to relatives and coordination with law enforcement—before closing cases as unlocatable.

Committee members also pressed staff on timeliness and case outcomes. Malone noted statutory custody steps: when law enforcement removes a child in an emergency, CYFD must file a petition within three days and the children's court must hold a custody hearing within 10 days; adjudicatory hearings generally must begin within 60 days or the petition is dismissed absent an extension. Periodic judicial reviews occur every six months and permanency hearings must occur at least every 12 months after entry.

Staff and members discussed placement shortages and the decline of licensed group homes. LFC staff and CYFD representatives said New Mexico has a high relative-placement rate (about 45–52%) and uses family-finding software to locate kin, but members reported instances of children temporarily kept in office space or other nonresidential settings when beds are unavailable.

On prevention and early intervention, Malone summarized the state's Family First prevention plan: it was approved by the federal government, but only two programs listed (Motivational Interviewing and SafeCare) qualify for Title IV-E reimbursement; other programs such as Family Connections were included in the plan but are not federally reimbursable. Malone said the GROW funding is intended to support building a multilevel/differential response model and that pilots are underway in San Juan and McKinley counties.

The presentation closed with an acknowledgement from staff that system performance has room for improvement and a list of follow-up requests from members: the committee asked staff to provide additional data on screening reasons, failure-to-file rates for three-day petitions, CASA coverage, placement counts and metrics on whether required court check-ins and permanency hearings are being held on schedule.

The committee planned follow-up briefings and Zoom deep dives on screening, permanency and resource-family recruitment ahead of budget deliberations.