Childcare workers and advocacy groups on Thursday called on New Mexico Senate lawmakers to ensure raises for early childhood education workers remain in the state budget, even as the governor’s vision of universal childcare remains a sticking point in budget negotiations.
In a news conference held outside the Roundhouse’s western steps, early childcare advocates said the Legislature must invest in raises, or risk people leaving the profession for higher paying jobs with more stability.
“The turnover is costly, not just for the resources for recruiting and training new staff but in disruption it causes for families who need our support,” said Alei Maxson, director of home-visiting startup La Luz Family.
Advocates urged members of the Senate Finance Committee in a letter Thursday to support a $60 million allotment in HB2 for the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department. The funding pays for a program to increase wages for educators with more qualifications.
Magnolia Chavez, who operates a home-licensed care center in Albuquerque for about 15 children of varied ages, said child care operators have for too long been “poorly paid and poorly valued.”
“Universal childcare will only work if the educators are willing and able to remain in this field,” Chavez said in Spanish outside of the Roundhouse Thursday. “When educators do not have stability, the families don’t have it either,” she said.
Child care has emerged as a top priority for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s last session. However, the $11 billion budget bill, which advanced out of the House this week, in its current form does not fully fund the governor’s vision for free universal childcare, which she unveiled last year and which has garnered national attention. The Legislature’s budget, instead, includes co-pays in the state’s child care program for higher-earning families, which the governor opposes.
“For me, universal childcare means if there’s a copay it’s not really universally applied,” Lujan Grisham said during a bill signing and news conference Thursday morning. Negotiations remain ongoing, she said.
