Lawsuit seeks access to withdrawal medication for prisoners – Associated Press
Civil rights advocates have filed a lawsuit against the New Mexico Corrections Department seeking to ensure access for prison inmates to medication that reduces opioid withdrawal symptoms or cravings.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque by the ACLU and Disability Rights New Mexico on behalf of a 28-year-old woman incarcerated at a state prison in Grants.
The woman began using heroin as a teenager and more recently was diagnosed with opioid use disorder and prescribed methadone that reduces opioid craving and withdrawal. She lost access to the medication while incarcerated.
The lawsuit contends that denying inmates access to anti-craving and withdrawal medications such as methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone constitutes cruel and unusual punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
«Without access to their doctor-prescribed medication in prison, people with opioid use disorder suffer painful withdrawal and face high risk of relapse, overdose, and death—both while they are in prison and upon their return home,» the ACLU said in a news release.
Corrections Department officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
New Mexico state government has been at the forefront of strategies to reduce the toll of drug use and addiction — from the distribution of overdose antidote drugs to legal immunity provisions for people who may implicate themselves in crimes by seeking overdose treatment for themselves or others.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation this year that allows broad access to test strips that can detect the presence of the potent opiate fentanyl and potentially help avoid deadly overdoses.
Eligible New Mexico students to get free virtual tutoring – Associated Press
New Mexico will begin offering some students free virtual tutoring for math, science and other subjects.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the online tutoring program Thursday as part of the state’s efforts to invest in education.
The tutoring will be for students between pre-Kindergarten and eighth grade at Title 1 schools, including tribally controlled schools. It will be available before after or during school hours. Participating students will be able to receive up to 20 hours of tutoring.
It was not immediately clear how much the tutoring program would cost the state.
The state’s Public Education Department requested tutoring services from Paper Education Inc., a company specializing in virtual tutoring. The company has tutors and instructors who are fluent in English and Spanish. It services schools in 34 states.
State lawmakers have been trying to show efforts made to improve public education in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and aggressive health restrictions that shut down classroom teaching for roughly a year.
With social safety nets about to shrink, HSD asks for more staff and tech – By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
After as many as 100,000 New Mexicans get kicked off of Medicaid when the COVID health emergency is declared over, 30 days later, nearly everyone getting food benefits in the state will see that payment drop by one-third, according to the state’s Human Services Department.
HSD manages the state’s Medicaid and SNAP programs, which together serve 1,081,988 people, or 51% of the state’s entire population.
Human Services Secretary David Scrase told the Legislative Finance Committee on Wednesday the department will need more money to make up for what will be lost when the federal government declares the emergency over, along with more staff and better tech systems to get people who are dropped back onto the rolls.
“We’re going to need to get more people on board to do this right,” Scrase said. “But please, you will get calls. I think you will get a lot of calls from your constituents.”
160,000 additional people came onto the Medicaid rolls as a result of a requirement for continuous health care coverage during the emergency, Scrase said.
If many of those people flood the offices in person or the phone lines trying to access health care or food assistance, “that will strain our capacity,” he said. More than 15% of HSD’s staff positions are unfilled.
There will be a $254 million shortfall in the Medicaid program when the emergency ends and additional federal dollars stop coming to New Mexico, Scrase said. HSD is asking lawmakers for $254 million to replace the lost funding.
“When the public health emergency ends, that’s actually the cost of doing Medicaid,” Scrase said. “When that goes down, we have to replace that.”
HSD is also asking lawmakers for a one-time allocation of $27 million, primarily for SNAP benefits.
To fill empty social work positions, CYFD secretary requests a bigger budget – By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The state’s child welfare department is in need of more social workers to ease caseloads, reduce burnout and better help kids in a state with some of the worst outcomes for children, the department secretary told lawmakers Wednesday.
The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department has 509 vacancies across six offices, according to a presentation from Secretary Barbara Vigil to the interim Legislative Finance Committee. Of them, 443 are in the department’s Juvenile Justice Services and Protective Services divisions.
The Protective Services Division is the agency’s biggest, and is tasked with investigating reports of abuse or neglect, and to take action to prevent additional harm. The division is short 211 employees, primarily social and case workers.
Vigil referenced a workforce plan the agency is finalizing, one that she said would help retain workers, reduce turnover and bring in new hires. The plan calls for boosted wages for existing employees, better recruitment and establishing a social worker pipeline with the help of universities.
“They’re our greatest asset,” Vigil said of CYFD employees. “We cannot do this work. We will continue to struggle unless we build a workforce that is safe, that is supported, that is trained and compensated at a level that we can keep them.”
CYFD is asking the Legislature to approve an 11.8% budget increase, from more than $346 million to more than $386 million. That includes $27 million more for the Protective Services Division.
Some of the money would go toward raises, Vigil said, to help retain current employees and also make pay across the agency more equitable. Long-time employees hired at lower initial salaries are earning less than new employees, she said.
The agency would also give 10% raises to staff with a one-time boost in funding, officials said, along with additional pay increases for work experience and education.
Job postings on the CYFD website show the agency is hiring intake workers, placement case workers and investigative workers with starting base salaries less than $20 an hour for those without much education or work-related experience.
And pay is low for those with college degrees: $22 to $24 an hour for those with a master’s degree in social work, according to Emily Martin, director of the Protective Services Division.
A report in March from KOAT-TV found that the state’s CYFD caseworkers have a caseload double the national average. Caseworkers here, on average, each investigate 124 cases a year.
The CYFD hiring plan aims to reduce caseloads to the national average within three years, according to Vigil’s presentation.
Rep. Patti Lundstron (D-Gallup), chair of the Legislative Finance Committee, said $22 is too low, given the difficult job.
“This is not a good salary level for what these people are responsible for. At all,” she said. “I’m surprised that the vacancy rate is only what it was … Particularly when I see them as being with the child as the centerpiece of your system of care.”
Early childhood education advocates look for stopgap funding as they await a decision from Congress – By Shaun Griswold, Source New Mexico
Early childhood education in New Mexico needs a bridge that officials say will cost almost $154 million.
This money could cover day care and preschool costs, help with recruiting staff and boost aid for working parents in the state until Congress passes a bill allowing New Mexico to move money from the Land Grant Permanent Fund into early childhood education, a measure that New Mexican voters overwhelmingly approved by passing Constitutional Amendment 1 during the November election.
New Mexico Early Childhood Education & Care Department Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky requested the “bridge loan” as a one-time appropriation from the state’s General Fund on top of a $28.3 million request to increase the overall department’s budget. In total, ECECD requested a budget of more than $453.6 million to operate facilities for children as young as newborns up to 5-years-old.
This budget will also include federal dollars and revenue from a trust fund that started with more than $320 million passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2020, the year after she signed the law creating the agency now responsible for early childhood education.
That trust will increase annually when Congress approves the measure passed by voters in the state to include more money from revenues generated by business on state lands.
With all those funding sources, Groginsky said the bridge loan will help maintain the agency’s goals to provide free or low-cost child care and pre-K for every New Mexican family.
“We didn’t really expand,” she said. “We use federal funds, but we’re asking for a bridge loan to get us to the future distributions from the trust fund. So we’re not expanding in one year. We are here, and we want to continue without interruption.”
Some members of the Legislative Finance Committee, who have met all week to listen to state agencies asking for higher budgets, sparked some hesitation about the request for early childhood education.
Sen. William Burt (R-Alamogordo) wondered when the agency would meet the needs of his rural constituents in Chaves, Lincoln and Otero Counties.
“Unfortunately, those kids aren’t near proximity to agencies and facilities that can provide some of the services that they may need,” he said.
Groginsky said the goal is to get an ECECD resource office set up in each New Mexico county. To date, she said the agency has worked with local school districts to set up child care facilities in public schools in places such as Gallup and Clayton.
“We can build the support for families, because families can’t wait,” she said. “Children are born, they need care. We need a workforce to come back to work, and we can’t get them there without access to child care, early care and education.”
Eduviges Hernandez is a community organizer in rural New Mexico with the group Somos Accíon. She came to Santa Fe from Hobbs with several dozen families and their children to witness the meeting and show support for the early childhood education budget.
The biggest issue she sees in setting up enough centers for every child in the state is a lack of quality pay for teachers and staff.
“I’m frustrated, because I can’t believe that we need to fight more for their money to come to our rural communities,” she said. “We’ve been hearing the teachers say that they don’t have too much help in the schools. The classrooms are very saturated.”
She said centers can have up to 15 children per educator, and bathrooms and other facilities need major repairs.
Similar issues are present for early childhood educators in Bernalillo County. Vanessa Rogers said she is in her 25th year working with the youngest New Mexicans and is excited at the amount of investment going toward early childhood education, but the need for better pay is causing staffing issues.
She works with a center run by YDI in the South Valley that serves predominantly Hispanic and Native American children. Pay at her facility starts at minimum wage, set to go up to $12 an hour in New Mexico in 2023, and staff can see higher salaries based on experience or licensure. However, most are making under $15. She wants to see at least a $4 raise for all employees.
“We are losing incredible teachers every single day. And cooks, maintenance workers and staff that are there to help these amazing kids,” she said holding back tears. “And then the parents are like, ‘Where did the teacher go? She was amazing.’ I tell them, I’’m sorry, they have to go somewhere where they can make more money.’”
Rogers said she wants lawmakers to approve the bridge loan to get money to the schools and meet the will of the voters now.
“We’re preparing doctors, lawyers, you know, a whole array of kids for the future,” she said. “This time from birth to five is critical. It’s when they learn the most, but the pay for the teachers is the least. What does it say about New Mexico when we’re not providing the people who are preparing the future with adequate wages?”
State licensing department hacked, client info potentially stolen – Santa Fe New Mexican, KUNM News
The state department in charge of maintaining professional licenses was hacked months ago and has just notified its customers that their personal information may have been compromised.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports officials with the Regulation and Licensing Department say they noticed the activity on October 7th and notified law enforcement and cybersecurity experts right away.
However, they didn’t notify the holders of 40% of accounts that were impacted by the breach until about two months later, with a letter sent on Dec. 4.
The agency told about 225-thousand customers that it remains unclear if their information was stolen – including social security numbers, names, and addresses.
A spokesperson for the department says it’s set up a call center to answer questions. It also offered clients a year of free credit-monitoring through Experian.
More questions than answers at Colorado River water meetings – By Ken Ritter Associated Press
Key questions resurfaced Thursday at a conference of Colorado River water administrators and users from seven U.S. states, Native American tribes and Mexico who are served by the shrinking river stricken by drought and climate change.
Who will bear the brunt of more water supply cuts, and how quickly?
What target goals need to be met for voluntary cutbacks in water use by the seven states that rely on the river before the federal government steps in?
What about controlling water evaporation once snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains enters the system and begins flowing to Mexico?
«I don’t have answers. I just have questions right now,» Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, said during a Colorado River Water Users Association panel about the state of the river.
The agency manages canals delivering water to much of Arizona, and was the first to feel the effects last year of drought-forced cuts to water flow from the river.
The Colorado provides drinking water to 40 million people, irrigation for millions of acres of agriculture and hydropower in the U.S. Southwest.
«Collective painful action is necessary now,» Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said during the same panel.
The river serves four headwater states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — and three so-called Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. Tribes and Mexico also have water entitlements.
Talk at sessions Wednesday and Thursday has focused on cooperation between users to solve shortages. But data showing less water flows into the river than is drawn from it has dominated over the conference. And after more than two decades of drought and climate change, the annual conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas has taken on a crisis vibe.
«The alternative to inaction is brutal and entirely obvious,» Cullom said of a domino effect of shortages that would be borne first by entities with junior water rights advancing to those with senior standing. «We agree all states, sectors and tribes must play a role.»
Deadlines about what to do are fast approaching, along with a deadline next Tuesday for public comment on a federal Bureau of Reclamation effort expected to yield a final report by summer about how to save about 15% of river water now distributed to recipients.
David Palumbo, the Bureau of Reclamation deputy commissioner of operations, told the conference panel with Cooke and Cullom Thursday he hoped for answers. Those include assumptions about the amount of water flowing in the river; effects of changing river flows in the Grand Canyon; how officials should administer reductions; and considerations about public health and safety.
Limiting population growth was not discussed as an option. Cooke said market forces, not the government, should dictate who moves where.
«People have the right to make a good choice or a bad choice,» he said, «and that includes moving to a spot that might not have water.»
The bureau controls the flow of the river with waterworks including the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona state line and Lake Powell formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah line.
Lake Mead was at 100% capacity in mid-1999. Today it is 28% full. Lake Powell, which was last full in June 1980, is at 25%.
Water deliveries were cut last year for the first time to Arizona and Nevada, mostly affecting farmers in Arizona under a 1968 agreement that gave the state junior rights to river water in exchange for U.S. funding to build a 336-mile canal to its major cities.
The bureau could impose top-down rules that override shares that states agreed to take in 1922 and subsequent agreements. However, although federal officials are due to speak on Friday — including Camille Touton, bureau commissioner, and two top Interior Department representatives — blockbuster announcements are not expected.
Reclamation officials last June told the seven states they’ll have to cut more, and left it to them to identify ways to cut the 15% next year, or have restrictions imposed on them. The federal government has also allocated billions of dollars to pay farmers to fallow fields and to help cities cut water use.
«We’re using more than we have,» Brenda Burman, former head of the Bureau of Reclamation, said during «Colorado River 101» on Wednesday.
«We could be looking at a lot of cuts. We could be looking at a lot of changes,» she said.
As head of the bureau, Burman had warned the Water Users Association four years ago that drought action was needed. She’ll be replacing Cooke, who is retiring, as general manager of the Central Arizona Project.
Becky Mitchell, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, expressed frustration Thursday that people don’t realize that water is captured in Upper Basin states and then doled out by the bureau in Lower Basin states.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming «live within the means of the river every day,» she said.
John Entsminger, general manager of the Las Vegas-based Southern Nevada Water Authority, compared dealing with the effects of drought on the Colorado River to a national emergency like a hurricane in Florida, and said the federal government could invest national emergency funds.
Entsminger also said it’s time to chart the amount of water lost to evaporation when usage and allocations are considered.
«We have not accounted for the amount of water we are losing from the system,» he said. «Call it evaporation, system losses, call it strawberry shortcake for all we care. Do the math and the analysis.»
Former New Mexico governor to attend Navajo Tech graduation – Associated Press
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is scheduled to appear at Navajo Technical University’s graduation ceremonies Friday.
Richardson, who served as governor from 2003-2011, is a special guest speaker at the graduation with 72 students receiving their degrees.
Navajo Nation President-elect Buu Nygren will deliver the keynote address at the graduation and join Richardson in gifting 120 pairs of athletic shoes to children in need at three schools in Lake Valley, Torreon and Crownpoint.
The shoe donations are part of the COVID-19 Navajo Families Relief Fund which has distributed food, water, diapers, dog food and emergency supplies to help tribal members since 2020.
The fund also has donated medical supplies to eight Navajo Nation hospitals and partnered with a foundation to deliver nearly 1,200 pairs of quality shoes to needy youth in 13 tribal communities in New Mexico.
El Paso grapples with surge of migrants, braces for more – By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Authorities in El Paso, Texas, described a humanitarian crisis Thursday as they grapple with the daily release of roughly 1,600 migrants to local shelters and the streets of the border city amid preparations for even larger flows if Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week as scheduled.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser told a news conference that the city is distributing outdoor toilets and water stations as it offers overnight hotel rooms to migrants, whose numbers are exceeding capacity at a county reception facility and the region’s network of shelters with nonprofit and faith-based groups.
The Department of Homeland Security is indicating it may release more migrants into the United States when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week, with local government and border officials warning of immigrants waiting to cross into the U.S. Under current restrictions, migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
El Paso in recent days has witnessed hundreds of migrants wading across shallows waters of the Rio Grande into the U.S., forming lines along a border wall to approach immigration authorities and request refuge. City officials fear the asylum-rule change could double local migrant crossings, estimated at roughly 2,500 migrants a day over the past week.
Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, said migrants currently perceive Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, as a relatively secure place to approach the border amid dangers in Mexico of extortion and organized crime.
The City of El Paso announced Wednesday it received a new $6 million commitment to underwrite its migrant response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
«This funding and shelter is not the answer, it’s a Band-Aid to really a bigger problem,» said Leeser, a Democrat elected in 2020. «It’s something we’re going to have to work with the (United Nations) and other countries, to work through a situation … that’s again is bigger than El Paso and that now has become bigger than the United States.»
Mario D’Agostino, a deputy city manager leading the emergency response, said the sheer number of migrants is straining not only local staff but also U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
«They’re working long hours, day and night, they’re doing processing rather than their primary function of securing the border,» he said.
City officials say that most of the migrants released in recent days by federal immigration authorities have some financial means or sponsors in the U.S. to pay for transportation to communities in the U.S. interior. But he said the city is bracing for an even larger surge in asylum-seeking migrants that may not have resources for further travel.
The city recently disbanded its aid and communications center for migrants, while suspending a busing program that delivered thousands of mostly Venezuelan migrants to Chicago and New York in September and October.
D’Agostino outlined a new strategy that might ferry migrants to large, nearby transportation hubs, such as Dallas, Denver and Phoenix. He said federal immigration authorities are preparing to possibly process and directly release migrants at a bridge that connects Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso.
The city’s response to surges in migration numbers stands in contrast to border-security efforts by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, who has deployed troops to the border and gotten attention for busing migrants to faraway Democratic strongholds.
