Phill Casaus: Fix CYFD, and you've got a great governor

Sep. 24—Nearly three decades ago, I shadowed a brand-new governor named Gary Johnson for an entire day. Refreshingly, it was like interviewing the president of a college fraternity. A political newcomer, Johnson was likely to say anything, didn't need a PR flak to massage his message and surely didn't fret if his words failed to meet others' expectations.

Dude, he was the Guv.

As I recall, at one point Johnson blurted: "If I just fixed MVD [the state's then-beleaguered Motor Vehicles Division], they'd probably think I was a great governor."

Michelle Lujan Grisham or Mark Ronchetti has the same challenge come Jan. 1. They can sprinkle money for their pet initiatives from Hobbs to Farmington, or moondust from Elephant Butte to the Sea of Tranquility, but if they could just repair the state's Children, Youth and Families Department, they might be worthy of posing for Rushmore.

CYFD is the MVD of its day. An acronym that breeds acrimony.

Wait a minute. CYFD was the MVD of days gone by, too.

That, sadly, is the nature of the department, which for decades has dealt with perhaps the toughest, most depressing stories in New Mexico — a society's inability or unwillingness to adequately care for some of its youngest, most vulnerable citizens.

New Mexico's CYFD is not alone. Children's services departments in other states have the same basic problems — which is to say, far too many problems to count.

Ronchetti's camp has argued, with accuracy, Lujan Grisham's administration has done little to improve CYFD. Lujan Grisham's camp will fire back that Republican administrations, most recently Susana Martinez's, bear just as much blame.

Either way, I don't care. What's most important is what's next.

Here's why: Last week, a report from the Legislative Finance Committee indicated CYFD was underperforming on markers like repeat maltreatment, maltreatment of foster children and serious injuries after protective services involvement. Not a shock. And regardless of how many green ratings it got — green being good — the report suggested the department's inadequacies are significant. Again, not a shock.

Which lands us, once again, in politics and the governor's race.

The reality of governing isn't in the prefabbed news conferences or even hush-hush, big-deal meetings with key legislators. That's entertaining and all, and occasionally, even has impact. But the real challenge is in the offices, most far away from the Capitol, where Cabinet secretaries and the people who work for them are located.

Good governors, the best governors, find the right people to manage tough situations — or keep looking until they find the right people — and make the trains run not just on time, but better and more efficiently.

Depending on who wins the election, that's what makes next year — actually, the next four — so interesting.

Lujan Grisham's second CYFD secretary, former Supreme Court Justice Barbara Vigil, will be under excruciating and accelerating pressure to stop the bleeding in CYFD — the headlines of horrific abuse; problems in the foster care system; the inability to quickly overcome problems inherited from previous administrations.

But Ronchetti's charge, if he's elected, is no less sobering. Remember, he's from outside the Paseo de Peralta beltway — tilting at governmental windmills he says spin badly due to the "elites" in Santa Fe. He has said he will look for good leaders to run his departments, but does he have the connections or the skills to hire someone to handle a monster like CYFD? Or would he rely upon others to headhunt a savior for the department — the way Martinez hired Hanna Skandera to "fix" the Public Education Department or Lujan Grisham discovered the departed Brian Blalock to "fix" CYFD.

There's also this, for both candidates: It only takes one nightmare involving a child to make an entire department look bad. Regardless of how you look at CYFD, the sad reality in New Mexico is there are many, many nightmares. Any campaign promise regarding the agency should be made with care, because every vow is adjoined to a trap door.

There's really only one way to avoid falling through.

Come January, the governor of New Mexico is going to have to announce an expansive plan to improve CYFD — one that has legislative buy-in and millions and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to back it up. It's not going to be enough to announce "We'll put children first," or "We'll make children's and families' lives better at the front end so we don't burden CYFD." Everyone's heard that before.

It's going to take more, much more, to keep CYFD from being New Mexico's four-letter word. But fix it, and you're a great governor.

Phill Casaus is editor of The New Mexican.