A new legislative report on the performance of state government agencies questions whether some targets may be set too low.
It singles out, in particular, the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, which meets several performance targets but continues to “perform poorly” in reducing repeat child maltreatment — the child welfare system’s primary goal.
“In a sea of green ratings — although the success on many CYFD ratings is, perhaps, a reflection of undemanding targets — the department continues to underperform on targets for repeat maltreatment, maltreatment of foster care children, and serious injuries after protective services involvement,” the Legislative Finance Committee report states. “New Mexico’s rates for repeat maltreatment are among the worst in the nation.”
The report, presented to lawmakers on the committee during a Wednesday meeting in Taos Ski Valley, follows the July release of an independent review of CYFD that cites a series of internal problems hindering the agency’s performance and recommendations for improvements, including specialized “micro” training sessions for front-line investigators and supervisors; a new team to review serious injuries and child deaths; and more uniform training for caseworkers on how to determine the risk level a child faces in a home.
Cabinet Secretary Barbara Vigil, a former state Supreme Court justice, ordered the review last year when she took office in response to a series of violent child deaths in 2021. Other high-profile child deaths occurred after the review was ordered.
CYFD also has come under scrutiny following the recent arrests of three women in Texico who face horrific allegations of the abuse of six children in their care.
The women are accused of starving the children, chaining them to their beds and holding them in dog kennels, according to a KRQE-TV report earlier this month. The news report cites a video in which a CYFD investigator tells a New Mexico State Police officer the children had been removed from the home previously because the women had kept them in cages.
The Legislative Finance Committee report says in their year-end report cards, state government agencies scored more green ratings — which a parent with a child in school would consider the equivalent of A’s and B’s — than the less desirable yellow and red ratings.
A green rating generally means an agency has met or exceeded a target. Yellow means it was close, and red means it missed the mark.
But the plethora of green ratings, indicating programs are generally hitting or exceeding targets, may not always be a good assessment of an agency’s performance.
“In some cases the target might be too low to be a true measure of the success of a program or so easily attainable programs have no motivation to improve,” the report states.
“Examples include instances where the targets have been set lower than actual performance from prior years,” it continues. “When considered with the more balanced distribution of ratings for programs, the abundance of green ratings on individual measures suggests measures and targets might need to be updated.”
In the case of CYFD, the report recommends expanding and leveraging several evidence-based options for preventing repeat child maltreatment “to garner more federal revenue and improve outcomes.”
Charlie Moore-Pabst, a spokesperson for CYFD, said in a statement repeat maltreatment includes both abuse and neglect, but most cases involve neglect.
“One of the Department’s key goals is to reduce, and, ultimately, eliminate all forms of repeat maltreatment,” Moore-Pabst wrote. “We are attacking this problem by focusing on two main areas — strengthening our workforce and rebuilding a behavioral health system of care. Both take time and investment.”
Charles Sallee, deputy director of the Legislative Finance Committee, noted CYFD’s report card for child protective services was flush with green ratings.
“One of the big takeaways … that we’re seeing as a theme that doesn’t get a lot of attention during the budget development process and that maybe we need to revisit is target setting,” he said. “What’s the goal for the next year?”
While child protective services “looks really good” in the report card, Sallee said the ratings are set too low.
“As a snapshot, this report is designed to tell you green, kind of move on, but in reality what’s happened with child protective services is they’ve somehow, through our budgeting process, figured out how to have their targets set well below what prior year actual performance was,” he said.
He cited children in foster care who had at least one monthly visit with their caseworker as an example of a measurement with a low bar.
“Historically, we wanted that to be 100 percent,” he said. “The target here [for fiscal year 2022] was only half.”
Moore-Pabst said performance measures for CYFD are established annually with the Legislature.
“We are encouraged that the department has met or exceeded the majority of measures. For example, we dramatically exceeded the target for family and kinship placements,” Moore-Pabst said. “We are disappointed that the report does not acknowledge the Department’s overall progress.”
Sallee said agency’s performance targets may come under more scrutiny.
“We may be pushing back a little bit more on not setting targets that are below prior year actuals to get agencies to really stretch to try to improve performance,” he said.
Moore-Pabst said CYFD would “continue to make adjustments to establish appropriate targets” in conjunction with the Legislative Finance Committee.