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Thank you.

Welcome to Your Legislators.

I'm KC Counts.

The New Mexico State legislature convened January 20th in Santa Fe for its 30-day session, primarily focused on budget.

Throughout the session, KRWG Public Media is speaking with lawmakers about legislation they support, issues they hope to address, and how the state's budget is expected to take shape in an ever changing landscape with regard to federal funding and other issues.

Last week, we heard from State Representative Sarah Silva, district 53, state representative, a Democrat, and we reached out to several other area lawmakers and we'll speak with as many of them as possible.

We schedule our interviews as we can around our legislators busy schedules.

District 38 State Representative Rebecca Dow, a Republican, joins us on this episode.

Thank you for making the time.

We understand it's quite a flurry of activity in Santa Fe.

It is.

And we're just getting started.

For representatives like Sarah Silva, myself and Small who serve on the Appropriations Committee, our work begins a week before everyone shows up.

We go, we work six days a week, often eight and even ten hour days until House Bill two is passed.

That's the budget bill.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about that week before everyone else arrives?

Tell us some of the inside stuff about what goes on there that people just don't know about.

Well, it's a whole lot of we call catch up and clean up.

We look at dollars that could be reverted or need to be reappropriated.

We look at capital outlay, special appropriations and growth of of government and then, you know, we do a lot of subcommittees.

We hear from a lot of agencies and advocates and kind of, you know, the lay of the land based on the interim work that begins really the day session, this session ends, we'll start working on next year's budget.

How would you characterize this year in it, as opposed to previous years, in terms of those agencies and organizations that are coming to the state to ask for budget money?

Yeah.

Well, one of the things that I find, concerning is that, you know, I was a first time freshman.

I'm now a second time freshman after redistricting, but I began serving in 2017 and our state budget was $6 billion.

Our state budget is exceeding $13 billion.

And, there's not enough.

And that's a little scary.

And I look at sometimes when we create programs that are entitlement, or when we, we pass a bill that has consequential, act a cause and effect to other aspects of the budget.

And we and we don't have enough money when we have $13 billion and hundreds of funds, some of those funds with billions of dollars.

And yet we've got to grow government bigger.

I'll give you two concrete examples.

You know, we passed.

We have it's been a while that we've been trying to implement the Affordable Care Act, the federal Affordable Care Act, and our own New Mexico version of that.

And and health care premiums continue to skyrocket.

So much so that put into statute last year was that we would pay for 80% of all state employees health care, no guardrails.

They can pick whatever program, whichever insurance program or plan that's available.

And so it's it's really expensive.

In addition to that, we passed an expansion of the Civil Rights Act.

Well, I voted against both these, but we voted for an expansion of the Civil Rights Act.

And the state is seeing many, many, many more tort claims.

People are suing the state.

So public education departments, their their cost of insurance is skyrocketing.

Department of transportation when people have an accident skyrocketing.

CYFD when we fail to reform systems to protect children lawsuits, that liability is skyrocketing.

So what I see different is that I go into the committee and every legislator, every agency who comes before us asking for money begins with we have to have for 4 to 9% growth to cover our employees, our state employees, health insurance.

And we've got to have a it's a pretty significant increase in growth to cover our liability and our our payouts on lawsuits.

Now, these are the consequences of bills we passed.

And so even though the affordable health care and medical malpractice bills were the intention, the purpose of the bills was to improve health care.

It actually increase the cost.

And our quality of care is declining.

So that is the biggest difference to me.

It's hard to put dollars into direct services because so much of our dollars are being used to shore up some bad policies that so far, we have not had the resolve to reform.

Well, why don't we, start with health care, since that's the last one that you mentioned.

obviously there are some efforts going through now, and and do you I think it's safe to say we expect some changes to be made.

We've got interstate compacts.

we've got efforts to address the gross receipts tax on services and of course, medical malpractice.

Tell us how you feel about the legislation that's moving through the legislature and what you expect to see come out of it on the other end?

Yeah.

Yeah.

To be clear, Republicans have been begging for well, we begged and pleaded and we debated until time ran out that we not passed that medical malpractice bill.

It passed by one vote.

And there was a lot of political pressure on the member who switched their vote.

They were a female.

they are a friend of mine, even though they're in, you know, we work very bipartisan.

And she went to the bathroom and she threw up and the consequences have not stopped.

So that bill was bad.

And the people who passed it need to fix it.

you know, I'm just being very frank with you.

I support the compacts Republicans have been carrying that bill.

We've been carrying medical malpractice reform bills.

We've been carrying tax credit bills.

This is my concern.

The the compacts have been fast tracked for people who are listening.

The compacts will allow doctors from 17 additional states to come quicker and add a little bit of savings to our state to practice.

So instead of spending $500 will cost them three 300 instead of taking months, it'll take weeks for them to come into our system.

That's been fast tracked.

Medical malpractice has not been assigned a hearing.

Medical malpractice, if it does not pass, our doctors can leave.

They will now be licensed to practice in 17 additional states They can leave.

So medical malpractice and compacts go together.

But already it's it's only the first week.

And medical malpractice has not had a hearing.

And the compacts have already passed the Senate.

So I'm very concerned as far as the tax credits to providers, I much prefer a tax credit to the, the, the the person who's paying for health care.

The individuals need to be able to choose their provider.

They need a tax credit instead of just growing the system.

All right.

Well, it's a good time to say that, because by the time our viewers have an opportunity to see this episode, a few days will have passed and anything can happen.

As we know, on any given day in this quick 30-day session in the New Mexico Legislature.

I'd like to move on to some legislation that you are supporting, including to address the needs of youth in state custody.

And I think we expect when we talk about bills moving through the legislature like a stack, maybe this tall.

so this one short, let's talk about, some ways that we need to address the desperate needs of youth in state custody.

Yeah.

for for viewers that Im new to Doña Ana, I did not have parts of Doña Ana before, the redistricting, and I do now, and it's it's about 44% of my district, and it's north of 70.

I have spent I had an unexpected pregnancy at 19, and it, pivoted my my life interest, just because I wanted to work in an infant room so I could be with my daughter while I stayed in college and finished my degree.

I fell in love with early childhood and spent 30 years now, building healthy families through a comprehensive system of high quality early childhood services.

So in the the 80s, when I was 26 years old, I started my first nonprofit and TorC home, visiting early childhood pre-K, infant mental health, parent child psychotherapy.

We opened up, afterschool programs, teacher career lattices and early childhood social work and related fields.

This is an area where I have expertise, and we did this for vulnerable populations, always inclusive.

We've always done emergency placement at our child care center and at our pre-K program.

We prioritize families who need it most.

And so to see CYFD falling apart, I introduced a couple of bills around CYFD and I am begging the majority to to give it a message.

My many of my bills will just end up in rules and never have a hearing.

But what I am trying to do is codify the plans that this governor and her executive have that are based in evidence best practices across the state, but it's only in rules and regs.

Today, just one year since the 60-day session, we are on our third Secretary of CYFD.

It is up to the lawmakers to say this must happen.

So I took the framework and the models and methods that the executive says that they want and said take it out of rules and regs, put it into law because our children cannot wait.

What does it need, to be in law in order to make it effective?

And what are the changes that we'll see as a result?

If that does happen?

Yeah.

So this is this is a each of my bills I put an appropriation on because when we have a budget and they do need funding, CFFD has been getting all the money they ask for.

But they're also not implementing the programs and reverting those dollars.

So we're not making any progress.

Things are getting worse for children in crisis and the and the workers, quite frankly.

So, what I did was put the, the, the framework of building a comprehensive system that serves children and their families when they are in state custody and put some money behind it.

It should have been ruled germane.

It was not ruled germane and they've been House Bill 65, for example, children in state custody was sent to the rules committee.

That's essentially it's dead.

But Las Cruces has children sleeping in offices.

Our our secretary, our current secretary CYFD, went and stayed in the offices with the kids.

The governor hears these stories where some of those kids have been there for over a year.

Like if you look in their case file and it says, where's their placement?

It says CYFD office.

If you were to call the Las Cruces Police Department and IPRA their police reports to that office, it is shocking.

Just a few weeks ago and the another mother or family member not related to children sleeping in the offices came in threatening the lives of the workers.

The children watched this.

So the governor issues the executive order, rightly so, and says no children in state custody.

But she didn't appropriate when she when she does an executive order, it can come with an appropriation.

No appropriation, no solution.

Just these kids can't be in offices.

And these are children in our neck of the woods that are either sleeping in an office or Mesilla Valley being stabilized, and then back to an office in the back to Mesilla.

They have no home.

There is no healing.

They're not going to school, many of them, and they have multiple diagnosis, no solution.

So I'm just trying to beg and beg and beg.

It's why I serve to ask my friends and my colleagues in the majority to get a message on this and to to rule it as germane because it is that bill and others.

Does this come down to just a shortage of appropriate foster homes?

What is the root cause?

Well, I mean, we have a shortage of foster homes, for sure.

Would you take in a child in crisis?

I mean, these children dual diagnosis.

You don't know their background.

You don't know if they've been, sexualized, if they're they're harming themselves and others.

You have no idea what their circumstances are.

And the state's going to give you $21 a day as a stipend to cover your costs of taking these children into your home.

I mean, these are problems we've we've created.

So House Bill 65, House Bill 76 says, you know, some of this money is to pay enhanced rates to get the appropriate placement for these children.

Of course, we want it to be residential, you know, in a in a foster home, in a foster treatment home, in a crisis foster treatment home.

As much as possible.

But if you're a girl in New Mexico and you are in state custody and there's no where to place you with a relative or in a safe home setting, we're a lot.

We have 20 over two dozen girls that are either in Texas or Utah right now, at a cost of over $20,000 a month to taxpayers.

This this is a solution.

These bills offer solutions.

And we know in Las Cruces we're dealing with juvenile crime.

I would I would guess and I don't think I'm wrong on this because of the work that I've done, that the majority of those children have had interfaces with CYFD and they have been part they have been children in custody.

And we are creating a pipeline to prison.

If we don't fix this.

What do those states, Texas and Utah have at $20,000 a month that New Mexico does not have?

Yeah, it's like conjugate care with 24-hour behavioral health services with crisis interventions.

And and because, you know, we don't want children living in what we would consider orphanages.

And you know, it's very technical.

It's very complicated.

And I don't even know all the different nuances.

But the state isn't even paying out of pocket for these things.

If we could just become compliant with federal law, Medicaid would reimburse 75% of these costs.

And then there's the the foster care funds that are a different federal title program that comes in and pays.

So when we pay foster parents more, we get reimbursed from the feds.

Those programs are being expanded under the current reconciliation Act, and we have an opportunity to take advantage of it.

There's no downside.

Let's talk a little bit about the short term stabilization pilot program that you're supporting.

One of the counties, where it would exist is Doña Ana county.

Tell us what that looks like.

Yeah.

So basically, when the governor issued a, I introduced that bill before the governor's executive order, because last year, 63 children in state custody, their home address was either a program like Mesilla Valley or a CYFD office, 63.

And it's just not okay.

So those children are getting secondary trauma from a failing system.

Like this isn't like an children as young as four.

And so, that bill was to say, let's take these children, this 100ish children that are just floundering in, in inappropriate care and let's get a, a group of experts around them.

Let's look at their case files and let's get them appropriate placement.

I mean, in some states, Louisiana, for example, they literally rented furnished finder homes, pre-furnished homes and put qualified staff in homes with groups of six or less with these children.

So they slept in a bed, you know, and had a backyard and could go play at the park.

And I mean, it was just saying, like all hands on deck.

And I think when you pair that with what happened in Las Cruces, literally, and in Albuquerque, I don't know if you're aware, Albuquerque had a 13-year-old that is floundering between these two settings that actually assaulted a CYFD workers.

Our workers are not safe.

And it took the law enforcement and two law enforcement officers were assaulted.

These are the kids that need all hands on deck to get them into appropriate placement.

That's only $2.5 million to look at those very hardest to place children and get them appropriate placement.

Then the governor issued her executive order.

Let's talk a little bit about public safety.

You've talked a lot about kind of a holistic approach to, the issues that youth are facing, youth at all ages.

Do you think that holistic approach is the best way to deal with juvenile crime?

Or do you think stiffer penalties is more appropriate?

You know, and it's, it's not a this or it's a that and because my heart absolutely breaks my life has been dedicated to prevention and early and immediate interventions.

I don't ever want children to get to this case.

But when children have been allowed with any any checks and balances, like if I were to describe to you what social workers and caseworkers tell me that Las Cruces office looks like, it sounds like literally lord of the flies, children are allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and there are no consequences.

So these children have been trained in the CYFD system and in the current judicial system, that they can break the law and get away with it, even up to murder, they they up to murder.

And so, we we have a problem on our hands.

And I think we need both approaches.

I want early and immediate intervention.

But when a child has decided, I'm going to give you a real life story.

A child in Albuquerque murdered a citizen for for no reason, murdered the citizen.

They know that they can be found non-competent just by not being able to put a puzzle together.

Let's say, you know, they tell their own stories.

Like just, just tell them you can't figure it out.

Identify colors wrong, can't assemble the puzzle.

Don't solve the problem and they'll call you non-competent and you'll never serve a day.

What happened in the case of this murder is that they didn't have appropriate placement for this child.

CYFD did not have appropriate placement for the juvenile who murdered a citizen and placed them on house arrest in the home where they should never have been put back.

So while they were on house arrest, the parents let them have a firearm.

Their parents did exactly what they did before no supervision, no accountability for their minor child, and they committed another murder.

This is a child under 18 who has now committed two murders.

And guess what?

They still never spent a night in jail.

They were still post adjudicated on a They are now, as we speak today, on an ankle monitor in the same home.

And so that system fails and it cannot be when they turn 18 without changes that child who is now a two time murderer, their record is sealed and expunged and they're out on the street able to carry a firearm and commit.

Now a third murder with no record known to the public.

So we've started to see in some places around the country and a limited number, parents held responsible for some criminal activity on the part of their children.

Should that be happening in New Mexico?

Absolutely.

And it needs to happen early.

It has to happen early.

Parents are their child's primary educator.

They are their child's primary health care provider.

And growing government doesn't always mean that the results are better.

If parents feel like everything is free, I can drop my child off for pre free child care at 7:00 in the morning.

The school is going to take care of free lunches, breakfast, lunch, snack and they're going to send me home with a dinner.

I have access to child care available at 6:00 in the evening.

Our parents are the ones who shape our worldview.

They're the ones who give us our context of how the world works and and nurture us.

And so, you know, with very good intentions, we're creating universal programs where, you know, the conservative in me is saying these need to be targeted interventions to families who need it most.

They need all hands on deck to help them build healthy families.

And, you know, this voluntary reunification of kids in crisis and families who are struggling, it does not make sense, and it doesn't produce a better outcome for the family or the child.

So, you know, government is not always a solution.

Well, your individual responsibility and parents taking responsibility for raising their child in an appropriate setting, that would be great to incentivize.

I guess you can't really legislate that though.

Well, but we were legislating the opposite when we're saying, look, we're not going to give.

I introduced a bill last year for paid family medical leave so that mom caregivers parents could raise, could stay home with a young child when at a birth, when they adopted, when they foster that was killed in the first committee.

But today we're going to create the largest entitlement program without any employer employee contribution, because we think child care should be free and universal from the day a child is born.

A high quality infant slot in the state of Mexico's is $37,000 a year.

But we we don't.

I mean, a mom today, if she had twin children, we would be paying $72,000 for a third party to care for her child when the average mom is going to make $44,000.

Why are we not incentivizing strengthening families and allowing parents to raise their children?

I mean, that's where we're getting in the state.

I want to see parents get an incentive and a tax credit for staying home.

So women with careers who also want to have families, obviously... Sure.

You know, we feel like that's not a fair choice to give them to have to make.

Sure we're not being offered a choice.

The only choice you're getting is free childcare.

But the studies I mean, you can look at PEW, you can look at there's there's a lot of studies been done this year and ohh that the the smallest percentage, 56%.

and sometimes there's a Gallup poll I think that shows over 80% of parents say if they could live on one income, if they could, the majority would choose to stay home with their child during their earliest years.

So I'm not I'm absolutely not saying parents should choose, but the model that we're funding that's going to cost the state billions of dollars to roll out is only giving one option go work and put your kids in childcare.

That's the option.

I'm saying if we want to strengthen families, maybe there should be a variety of options.

Some might choose part time work, some might choose to stay home.

Others would say, yes, I need childcare because that's the best place for my child.

And all those answers can be true.

And every family is unique.

So again, it's a policy that only gives one option.

Oh, what.

Do you think of what has been happening so far with families who are up to 400% over the poverty line being able to take advantage of child care?

And I mean, I think we've seen a lot of life stories really be enhanced by having that option.

Do you think it's been effective so far?

And yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

I think for those families that were their advocates, they were already working and they were already had their child enrolled in a child care program and it was a heavy burden on them.

And they now get it for free.

That made an incredible difference in their life.

We now have no slots and waiting lists, and we created a new category not me, the governor through rules and regulations create a new category called relative and neighbor care.

And that's the cheapest care we can buy.

That's the highest rate of growth.

200 new providers since November 1st.

That requires no background check, that requires no first aid and CPR class that requires no inspection of the home.

Does it have a fence that requires nothing?

It's $900 a month.

That's what our families are going to have access to.

And there's already incidents and accidents that are happening in those homes with no guardrail.

So choosing the cheapest care is not the best option.

And for those families that were over 400% that were already full time working in the workforce, it is a relief to them.

And it's real that is real because affordability is an issue.

However, they had no copay.

Is a copay okay, there's a two.

There's a $2,500 a year federal tax credit for child care.

Why are we not utilizing that and at what expense?

I'm envisioning next year this time, families having too families with with no dependents under eight, I think it is who need to get into the workforce or go to school or volunteer to keep their Medicaid.

We care about them too.

Those are going to become job seekers.

What kind of care will they have access to?

I believe in targeted interventions to the families who need it most, and this universal, free to all is a different definition than what early childhood experts like myself.

My degrees in early childhood have had and shared language for years, which is affordable.

That's not free, accessible, high quality and sustainable.

Those have always been our priorities and those remain mine.

All right, well, with the couple of minutes that we have left, you mentioned affordability and some other legislation that you're supporting is an affordable housing, revitalization corporate income tax credit.

So a bit of a mouthful, but tell us what the goal is.

Yeah, yeah, the goal is I serve on the housing authority, the subcommittee that meets in the interim.

And I, I think that home ownership, you know, it's moving from from paying rent to investing in your own equity.

And it's, it's it's housing stability, but it's also how you create wealth.

And and it just grounds people in our communities when you own a home.

So I'm concerned, about the rollouts that we're doing for a couple reasons.

They go to a committee who scores an RFP and, well, more than half of the money in most programs, and sometimes 80% is going straight to Bernalillo.

And so this, this bill that it my co-sponsor is a is a tribal member in the Democrat who's a Democrat also in the Senate.

And we're saying, look, you know, all this money is going to metro areas and it's been decided by a few.

A tax credit allows a corporation, which I mean, if you if you are self-employed or you, you know, have a limited liability because you're a a lot of us are corporations.

We're not talking Blackrock here.

Anybody who wants to invest in affordable housing in all 33 counties.

And if their project is small, if the project is la is big, they can help make housing affordable.

When the tax credit goes to someone who implements an eligible program.

So this is a way to move it statewide, in my opinion, and to make sure that it reach is outside of our major metropolitan areas.

Give us an idea of what an example of that might be for someone who say, well, how can I take advantage?

What what does it look like?

So there's a filmmaker in Socorro.

I also have the city limits of Socorro, and he bought the historic build out, Val Verde Hotel.

This is where Conrad Hilton got his first job.

And so, this hotel is in disarray.

It really needs to be remodeled, but it's already housing people with a section eight voucher.

So he could come in, revitalized that it has two floors, but no elevator, so only the first floor is being utilized.

He could get the second floor.

And, he's a filmmaker, but he's got a couple of businesses, and so he would qualify for that and it would double the capacity right there in downtown, Socorro, which is soon to be designated as a main Street area.

And I think about that all throughout my district.

There are buildings in our downtown areas that mostly used to be department stores.

Some of them are two and three stories, and they're there.

They could be revitalized for multi-family housing.

And those multi-family housing could also be condos available for sale, not just rent.

So most of what we're doing in New Mexico is paying corporations to build multifamily housing.

And then those are rented to section eight vouchers.

And so I, I really want to incentivize it to go statewide and also to produce homeownership.

All right.

District 38 state representative Rebecca Dow, thanks so much for being with us.

We appreciate it.

Good luck.

The rest of the session.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for joining us.

For Your legislators.

You can track the bills we talked about and any others you may be interested in at NM legis.gov under Bill tracker.

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