New Mexico’s universal childcare program now 1 year old

Editorial note: The video of this story originally aired on Nov. 2, before election day.

NEW MEXICO, N.M. – New Mexico leaders said more than 50,000 children now get free childcare statewide, with 18,000 joining after the program went universal one year ago.

New Mexico is the first and still the only state to offer free childcare to all families, regardless of income.

Leaders with the Early Childhood Education and Care Department said most of the children in the program are infants and toddlers. They said 75% of the 18,000 families who joined after the expansion already qualified for help.

“We see early childhood as the strategy that addresses most of the things New Mexico has been working through for generations,” said Kendal Chavez.

“We know the return on investment is going to pay off, and that it’s going to take a few years for things to settle,” said Chavez.

The department said 270 new providers opened in the past year, creating 7,000 childcare slots. Leaders said that is roughly half of the estimated 12,000 slots needed to meet demand.

“It no longer is attached to a specific income or the stigma that surrounds that, or a family not seeing themselves as part of the policy. It’s literally for everyone,” said Chavez.

Chavez said the department is focused on adding more childcare space, especially for infants and toddlers and in parts of the state with the biggest need.

“We’re laser focused on building supply,” said Chavez. “Everything that we’re doing around capital outlay dollars, deploying our child care revolving loan fund, working with instructional labs at universities, all of those priorities are targeted to infants and toddlers and the places in the state that we know are the need is most acute,” said Chavez.

The department wants $750 million in the next fiscal year to keep expanding. That is $157 million more than its current budget.

“We have been pretty close to our original projections,” said Chavez.

“But again, more children are accessing care, more families, and more high quality care for infants and toddlers, which drives costs,” said Chavez.

State law also requires some higher-earning families to pay part of the cost. The department said families making more than $198,000 a year will have copays, affecting less than 10% of participating families. Impacted families will have a 90 day warning before they have to start paying.

“There’s a little bit of heartburn around charging families for copays when the state has, you know, lots of new money coming in through the door,” said Chavez.

Chavez said the program still has growing pains as a new administration prepares to take over.

“We were clear in the beginning that we weren’t going to flip the switch and it was going to be perfect on day one,” said Chavez.

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