New Mexico should fund guardianship programs
If you speak to State leaders, each one will say they want New Mexico to be a State where New Mexicans of all abilities can access the services they need to lead meaningful lives. They will say they want advocacy for children with disabilities who need help at school. They will say they support adults with disabilities who need guardians but whose families cannot afford the guardianship process. And who wouldn’t? These are bipartisan issues that cross all political lines.
The New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Council is a small state agency that does this kind of big, important work—in every corner of the state. For students with disabilities and their families, the special education system can feel impossible to navigate. Since its launch in December 2021, the Council’s Office of the Special Education Ombud has assisted over 440 families in 61 school districts and 28 counties and advocated alongside 236 families in over 370 school meetings spanning over 2,100 hours.
Guardians provide critical services and facilitate care for protected persons when a judge determines they lack capacity to make medical, financial, or other major life decisions. The Council’s Office of Guardianship currently serves a record high of 1,043 protected persons (compared to 992 this time last year) and receives on average 35 new guardianship applications per month (350% of pre-COVID-19 application rates).
While guardianship is under scrutiny across the country, the Office of Guardianship has tackled New Mexico’s own guardianship problems and worked tirelessly to improve this state’s guardianship system. To protect the rights of vulnerable populations, the Office has instituted safeguards in the law and in state-funded guardianship practices, as well as expanded access to less restrictive options where appropriate. The Office of Guardianship is now completing cases in three to four months (compared to over a year for many cases less than 10 years ago). This fiscal year, 147 guardians have already been appointed—exceeding last year’s grand total of 132 guardian appointments.
For the next fiscal year, the Legislative Finance Committee has recommended a budget that is $2.3 million below the Council’s budget request, and $1.7 million below the Executive’s recommendation. What does this mean for New Mexicans that depend on the Council’s services? The guardianship waitlist will explode with no funding for new cases—and with no guarantees that emergency or priority cases can be processed. The State will lose high-quality guardianship and legal providers. Finding guardians for cases involving homelessness, mental health, and substance use will be next to impossible.
State leaders each say with genuine sincerity that these programs are essential and should be fully funded. But on January 29, the House of Representatives voted to approve the Legislative Finance Committee’s frighteningly inadequate recommendation. What’s at risk if the Council cannot find more funding in the Senate? New Mexicans with disabilities will be neglected, at best, or lose their lives, at worst. New Mexico cannot afford these tragedies.
It is time our elected officials put our taxpayer money where their mouths and their hearts are, and fund the vital, life-saving work of the Developmental Disabilities Council.
This article was authored by Joel A. Davis, Council Chair and Katie Stone, Council Vice Chair.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexico should fund guardianship programs
