From Dan Ritchey - Senate Finance Hearing

[LaWanda Albright]

Hello everyone,

It appears that the separate budget proposals by Gov. Susana Martinez
and by the Legislative Finance Committee for the Children, Youth and
Families Department are very similar, though the governor is
recommending slightly higher funding for child care assistance than
the LFC is, and the governor is proposing substantial cuts to CYFD
PreK (as well as Public Education Department PreK) and to home
visiting. Even where funding is slated to remain level with the
current year's funding, those levels are low because of steep cuts in
recent years.

CYFD Secretary-designate Yolanda Berumen-Deines, in her seventh day on
the job, helped present the CYFD budget to the Senate Finance
Committee on Wednesday, though she asked staff members for help in
answering legislators' questions because she is still becoming
familiar with the agency's operations and budget. "We (in CYFD) can
always put more money to good use," she told the committee, "but we
recognize that we live in challenging economic times and will make the
best and highest use of every dollar we do receive." She promised to
do a methodical review of services during the next three to six
months.

The CYFD budget will be presented again at the House Appropriations
and Finance Committee at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, in Room 307 of the
Roundhouse. Please let committee members know your concerns about
the importance of child care assistance, NM PreK, programs to improve
child care quality and other issues by calling or emailing committee
members listed at the end of this dispatch. (Many members are new,
and you may need to check with the Roundhouse switchboard --
505-986-4300 -- for their phone numbers.)

It is clear there will continue to be families on waiting lists for
child care assistance and for other early childhood services, such as
NM PreK, under proposed budgets by both the governor and LFC. Also,
both budgets call for the continuation of 4% reductions in child care
assistance provider rates. Audience members brought up the
likelihood of domestic violence shelters closing from budget cuts as
well. Crystal Sandoval, president of the NM Child Care and Education
Association, called attention to the death of a 3-year-old boy from
Pojoaque that morning from allegedly being beaten by his mother and
her boyfriend. As cuts persist in CYFD funding, more children will
be "put in unsupervised, unregulated environments," she said, in some
cases endangering them. "We cannot afford to allow them to be kept
in such environments," she said. The boy was allegedly killed by his
mother or her boyfriend in this case. In hard economic times, family
stress increases and that can be aggravated by lack of child care or
other services.

"Early childhood programs are critical," Berumen-Deines told the
committee. Sixty-eight percent of families with children zero to 12
years old use some form of child care. Quality early care and
education forms the "critical foundation for future life and workforce
success," she added.

Concerning child care assistance, the governor's budget called for
continuing to serve all the families currently in the program for
Fiscal Year 2012, which begins July 1, plus adding new families if
they earned below 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
There is a waiting list of families needing assistance. Her budget
allocates $82.7 million for assistance, about $3 million more than the
LFC ($79.7 million), which she was able to do by transferring money
intended to upgrade computers at the Human Services Department.
Berumen-Deines said the administration knows the computer work is
important, and proposes to fund it out of capital funding instead.
The LFC budget calls for disenrolling 900 families earning over 150%
of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and only adding new families if
they earned under 100% of the FPL as openings became available. The
state spent $93 million on child care assistance this year, and
expects to get by with less money next year because of attrition among
the families earning more than 100% of the FPL.

Concerning the NM PreK Program and home visiting, there are
differences between the governor's and the LFC's proposed budgets.
Primarily, the governor's budget did not replace Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) money that was used to help fund NM PreK in
the current year, whereas the LFC budget did replace that money from
other sources.

For CYFD PreK, the LFC recommended $8.02 million, compared with the
governor's recommendation of $7.02 million. (In the current year,
funding was $7.9 million.)

For PED PreK, the LFC recommended $6.29 million, compared with the
governor's budget recommendation of $5.29 million. (In the current
year, general fund money for PED PreK was the $5.29 million but it was
supplemented by carry-over money from previous years and TANF funds
for a total of $6.9 million.)

For home visiting, the LFC recommended maintaining the current $2.176
million budget from the general fund. Home visiting had federal
stimulus money to use this current year in addition, and that will not
continue or be replaced next year. The governor's budget
recommended about $630,000 less, or $1.546 million, from the general
fund. However, Berumen-Deines reported that CYFD expects to receive
$1 million in federal funds under the health reform act to use over
the next three years. CYFD expects getting notice of the grant soon,
she said.

Concerning other early childhood services, funding for Fiscal Year
2012 is expected to remain about the same as the current fiscal year
in BOTH the governor's and the LFC's budgets:

--Training and Technical Assistance Programs (TTAPS), $3,518,400.

--T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® scholarships, $231,900 for main CYFD
grant available to all early childhood programs. (T.E.A.C.H. also
gets funding through NM PreK. The $231,900 had been reduced from
$481,900 in Fiscal Year 2010. T.E.A.C.H. currently has a waiting
list for new applicants.)

--Child Care Resource and Referral, $120,000.

Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort and a couple of other committee members
lamented that former Gov. Bill Richardson had line-item vetoed a
designation of the proceeds from 25 cents of the new 75-cent-a-pack
cigarette tax approved in the 2010 session to go for early childhood
education because that $11 million from that tax would have helped.
The money is going into the general fund instead.

She said there has been a "push-pull' between NM PreK and private
child care centers about serving 4-year-olds. She said she and other
committee members have been protective of private centers because they
take care of babies and toddlers, too, and have difficulty making that
service affordable without enough 4-year-olds, who do not require as
much staffing. She has feared that more NM PreK programs will end up
in public schools -- instead of private centers -- and sponsored a
bill in 2010 to ensure parity between CYFD PreK and PED PreK in terms
of children served. That legislation was also vetoed by Richardson.

"We are losing (private) centers even as we speak," Beffort said.
"We have lost three centers in Las Cruces in the last few weeks and
will lose two in Albuquerque soon," she said. She did not outline
what all the contributing factors might be, such as an economic
recession, cuts to child care assistance provider rates, etc.

Another issue of great concern to her is that the state provide the
best trained caregivers to young children. "Every year we try to get
more money into the T.E.A.C.H. program," she said. By having the
best credentialed teachers in child care and education centers, the
children of New Mexico's poorer families "can go into kindergarten on
a par with everyone else's children." T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education
and Compensation Helps) provides scholarships tailored to people
already working with young children, and provides release time from
work and bonuses.

"What we are seeing is an eroding of the private centers -- the
backbone of working families -- and families go into underground
(unregulated) care with children watching TV and eating candy," she
said.

Questions by Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino brought out the information that
the 4% cut in child care assistance provider rates will continue in FY
2012 under both the governor's and the LFC budgets. His questions
also brought out that 900 children would be disenrolled under the LFC
budget proposal.

Sen. Howie Morales asked about CYFD's 13% statewide vacancy rate in
its staffing. Berumen-Deines said she will be looking at filling
critical positions, in particular front-line positions dealing with
direct service delivery, though there are a few other positions that
must be filled as well.

Morales said he would like to see better collaboration between
agencies, in particular the Public Education Department, CYFD, and the
Department of Finance and Administration. CYFD family services and
child care are education, he said, indicating that it is not just
Public Education Department programs doing education. Berumen-Deines
said she and the new education secretary, Hanna Skandera, have talked
about working together "to best meet the needs of children's
families."

Morales said his understanding is that there is a lot of American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money that is still at the
governor's discretion to spend. "I will have a meeting this week with
the executive about where we are at with the monies." Perhaps those
funds could be used to increase child care assistance eligibility, he
said.

Sen. Rod Adair raised questions about an agreement reached with the
American Civil Liberties Union over a lawsuit concerning juvenile
detention services. He asked the secretary to review the agreement,
which he maintained takes control of aspects of CYFD out of the
secretary's hands. The agreement, part of a 23-year lawsuit, costs
the state about $5 million a year in legal fees that could better be
spent on children and families. Berumen-Deines said she would look
into it.

She also said she will examine a two-year agreement signed by former
Gov. Bill Richardson at the end of his term with the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees covering family
child care home professionals who care for children on state child
care assistance. Sen. Beffort also requested a copy of the
agreement. "There are some concerns about what it provides or
demands," Berumen-Deines said.

Sen. Mary Kay Papen asked if Head Start programs had to be at a
certain STAR quality rating level from CYFD to get state funding. It
was replied that if a Head Start contracts to get state money for
providing NM PreK, the program must meet NM PreK standards, such as
assessing children in the fall and spring and having a curriculum.

Papen urged the new secretary to help keep child care centers and
domestic violence shelters open. "When times get tough, people get
tough with their families, too, and children are often the ones who
pay the biggest price. Keep your eye on the ball called the child."

Sen. Nancy Rodriguez expressed concern about the drastic cuts to
funding for domestic violence shelters. "Where will victims go?"
She said as many as one-third of shelters may have to close.

"The cost will be there for New Mexico regardless of whether we fund
the programs," she said, noting that the state will pay more in
hospital, law enforcement and other costs.


House Appropriations and Finance Committee

Chair, Rep. Henry “Kiki” Saavedra, Democrat, District 10, businessman,
2838 2nd St. SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, (Capitol) 986-4316, (wk)
505-350-0486, (h) 505-242-9582, (email) none.

Deputy chair, Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, Democrat, District 48,
retired, 1709 Callejon Zenaida, Santa Fe, NM 87501, (Capitol)
986-4318, (h) 505-982-1292, (email) none.

Vice chair, Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, Democrat, District 9, director of
N.M. Council of Governments, 3406 Bluehill Avenue, Gallup, NM 87301,
(Capitol) 986-4435, (wk) 505-722-4327, (email)
patricia....@nmlegis.gov

Rep. Ray Begaye, Democrat, District 4, businessman, Box 609, Shiprock,
NM 87420, (Capitol) 986-4436, (email) ray.b...@nmlegis.gov

Rep. William Gray, Republican, District 54, retired, 1503 W. Dallas
Ave., Artesia, NM 88210, (Capitol) 986-4226, (h) 575-746-2849, (email)
wjg...@pvtnetworks.net

Rep. Joni Marie Gutierrez, Democrat, District 33, landscape architect,
Box 842, Mesilla, NM 88046, (Capitol) 986-4234, (wk) 575-647-5577, (h)
575-526-5079, (email) jo...@zianet.com

Rep. Jimmie Hall, Republican, District 28, foundation director, 13008
Gray Hills Road NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111, (Capitol) 986-4215, (h)
505-294-6178, ljimmi...@nmlegis.gov

Rep. Conrad James, Republican, District 24, research engineering,
12020 Baja Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111, (Capitol) ------, (wk)
505-284-9546, (h) 505-323-4482, conradjam...@gmail.com

Rep. Rhonda S. King, Democrat, District 50, small business owner, Box
6, Stanley, NM 87056, (Capitol) 986-4438, (wk) 505-832-5050, (h)
505-832-4603, (email) none

Rep. Larry Larranaga, Republican, District 27, consulting engineer,
7716 Lamplighter NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109, (Capitol) 986-4215, (h)
505-821-4948, (email) la...@larranaga.com

Rep. Antonio Lujan, Democrat, District 35, consultant, 429 1/2 San
Pedro, Las Cruces, NM 88001, (Capitol) 986-4436, (h) 575-524-9519,
(email) alu...@q.com

Rep. Danice Picraux, Democrat, District 25, educator, 4308 Avenida La
Resolana NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110, (Capitol) 986-4438, (h)
505-232-2977, (email) danice....@nmlegis.gov

Rep. Nick L. Salazar, Democrat, District 40, government relations, Box
1076, Ohkay Owingeh, NM 87566, (Capitol) 986-4433, (wk) 505-667-0362,
(h) 505-852-4178, (email) none.

Rep. James E. Smith, Republican, District 22, teacher, Box 1783,
Sandia Park, NM 87047, (Capitol) --------, (wk) 505-934-1075, (h)
505-934-1075, j...@jimsmithnm.com

Rep. Don. L. Tripp, Republican, District 49, jeweler, Box 1369,
Socorro, NM 87801, (Capitol) 986-4220, (wk) 575-835-2456, (h)
575-835-0766, (email)
trip...@netscape.net

Rep. Richard D. Vigil, Democrat, District 70, Box 456, Ribera, NM
87560, (Capitol) 986-4242, (wk) 505-425-9793, (h) 575-421-1104,
rrrv...@plateautel.net

Rep. Jeannette O. Wallace, Republican, District 43, retired, 1913
Spruce St., Los Alamos, NM 87544, (Capitol) 986-4452, (h) 661-2575,
(email) Wal...@losalamos.com

Rep. James P. White, Republican, District 20, occupation not listed,
1554 Catron Ave. SE, Albuquerque, NM 87123, : james...@nmlegis.gov

To write to a representative in Santa Fe, address the letter to Rep.
------- ------ , New Mexico House of Representatives, State Capitol
Building, Santa Fe, NM 87501.

Dan Ritchey
Project Director
T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® NEW MEXICO
A Project of the New Mexico Association for the Education of Young
Children
(505) 243-5437

"Play is what I do when everyone else has stopped telling me what to
do." -- Child quoted in "Making the Case for Play," Children's Play
Council, England.