CYFD Did Not Spend Its $2 Million 2024 Appropriation

New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department did not spend any of the $2 million it received in fiscal year 2024 for services tied to plans for families raising infants exposed to opioids. The department said the one-year appropriation included no additional staff, limiting its ability to establish the workforce and operating model. Across seven public entities, more than $5 million of $21 million in opioid settlement funds was returned that year—roughly 24% of the money received. The report says the entities later spent all but approximately 1% of roughly $32 million received in fiscal years 2025 and 2026.

CYFD said it redesigned and expanded its CARA Navigator function and used TANF funding to create the Family Support Specialist program, which it said provided infrastructure for family-centered, in-home services. Aveanna says it aims to raise caregiver wages in Q4, then apply new wage rates and recruit in January. Its CEO said the company had been staffing roughly 50% of authorized hours in California after rates stayed stagnant for eight years and the COVID-19 pandemic. He said families could be told that it might take months to find a nurse. Aveanna leaders predict that hundreds of families could move from children’s hospitals to home-based pediatric care once staffing improves.

The mechanisms differ. New Mexico put settlement funds into agency programs, while California is raising Medicaid payment for private-duty nursing that providers must turn into wages and staffed hours. Together, the reports support a bounded read: public funding can create care capacity, but the packet does not establish that affected families have received the redesigned services or staffed home care. The next evidence is use of New Mexico’s programs and California staffing and hospital-to-home results after the rate takes effect.