CT Mirror--Later in the day Thursday, Jacob Vigil of New Mexico Voices for Children, a child advocacy and economic policy group, testified before the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee about his state’s early childhood trust fund, which was established in 2020. The fund started with $300 million in seed money, and the state designated a portion of surplus oil and gas revenues to sustain the trust fund each year.
Connecticut Inside Investigator--“In New Mexico, we did something similar to what HB 5002 is looking to accomplish, and truly it’s been a game changer in our state,” said Jacob Vigil, the Deputy Policy Director of New Mexico Voices for Children, who spoke in support of the bill. Vigil said that New Mexico’s early childhood trust fund received an initial endowment of $300 million upon its founding in 2020, and is now sitting above $5 billion in 2024.
The Paper--New Mexico is a land with many valuable assets – from our rich cultural diversity to our stunning physical beauty, to our mineral wealth. These assets belong to us all and while it’s impossible to put a price on some of them – our culture and natural landscape, to be precise – we can and do put a price on our mineral wealth. And that price needs to be fair so that we are all receiving the benefit of the bounty beneath our feet.
Albuquerque Journal--The civil rights leader James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” In other words, we can’t solve a problem if we refuse to look at it. Looking helps us know the extent of the problem. The column “An optimist’s guide to depressing data” takes the “New Mexico KIDS COUNT Data Book” to task for citing bad-news data about child well-being. We understand. We, too, find it demoralizing that New Mexico has the highest rate of child poverty in the nation.
Santa Fe Reporter--“One of the big policies that we’re excited about this year is particularly focused on Native American students and helping them to graduate, and that’s related to really making sure there is dedicated funding to support our Native students,” Wildau said. “We’re going to be really supportive of that.”
Santa Fe New Mexican--"All of these common-sense decisions ... not only prevented a significant decline in well-being for New Mexico kids and families, but it also laid a strong foundation for us to continue seeing improvements in many indicators of child well-being in the 2022 data," Wildau said.
NM Political Report--Bill Jordan, interim co-director and government relations officer for New Mexico Voices for Children, said one of the nonprofit’s legislative priorities for 2024 is to see full funding for early childhood services. He said NMVC doesn’t want to see lawmakers slack off on expanding early childcare services now that the 1.25 percent additional distribution from the Land Grant Permanent Fund is helping to expand ECECD’s services.
KRWG--New Mexico Voices for Children has proposed a number of policies that would directly help struggling families. They include paid family and medical leave; increased funding for early childhood care and education; a new fund to support tribal education; full funding for college tuitions; increased tax credits for young children, coupled with tax increases for upper-income residents; increased funding for the TANF program and full funding for Medicaid and Disabilities waivers.
Santa Fe New Mexican--“When you give people money, they invest in themselves,” New Mexico Voices for Children policy analyst Javier Rojo said during a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol.
The Hill--Mixed-status immigrant families are less likely to have health insurance, stable employment, savings, stable housing and food security, according to the report. “Their exclusion from most of the social safety net further exacerbates their tenuous socio-economic conditions,” the report states.