TUCUMCARI — Antoinette “Lena” Genco has nowhere to send her kids.
A corrections officer at the Quay County jail in Tucumcari, the single mother works 36- to 48-hour weeks, alternating every few months between daytime and graveyard shifts. She has two daughters — Kiara, 3, and Kennedi, 2 — and needs someone to care for them while she works.
Kiara is enrolled in a local Head Start program. But Genco hasn’t been able to get Kennedi in, and the small town’s only other day care has a waitlist a mile long. Genco’s elderly mother is her only option for her youngest daughter’s care.
“It is really frustrating. I know that in bigger towns … every other corner you see some sort of institution for kids to go in,” she said. “… But in a small town, it’s so hard.”
New Mexico’s child care system — from Tucumcari to Gallup and Raton to Las Cruces — is undergoing a seismic shift: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced plans in September to make the state the first in the nation to offer no-cost day care and prekindergarten to every family, regardless of income. The initiative, which launched Nov. 1, is slated to cost more than $660 million annually, though paying for it in coming years will require the Legislature’s approval.
The governor’s promise isn’t yet a reality. A lack of child care capacity — particularly in rural communities — leaves parents like Genco desperately seeking care. Providers face bureaucratic and financial hurdles in accomplishing the state’s goals for a free universal child care system, despite broadly supporting the idea. And lawmakers reel at the sticker shock of a massive investment in child care as the state’s resources dwindle.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
The New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department is working to expand child care access in the state — but data shows it has made marginal progress, increasing capacity statewide by just 10 slots from late July to mid-December, even as the number of providers has increased. The department’s data shows new seats for kids in that time period, largely due to new home-based providers, were only slightly higher than the number lost at larger licensed facilities.
To Genco, it feels like the expansion efforts haven’t reached rural Tucumcari, which long has struggled to sustain more than one or two early childhood programs.
The town, roughly 60 miles east of Santa Rosa with a population estimated at just over 5,000 people, has little affordable real estate suitable for child care facilities, making it difficult to open new centers.
“A lot of people look at Tucumcari like a dead end, ‘nowhere town.’ And so I feel like we kind of get overlooked,” Genco said.
Close to universal for years
In some ways, New Mexico’s goal of free care for all young children is not as big of a lift as it sounds.
Over the past six years, the state has gradually expanded its child care assistance program, first launched when early childhood programs were administered by the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. Officials broadened eligibility for the program at least three times, first allowing in families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level, then those at up to 350%, then those at 400%.
The state has been close to a universal system for a while now, said Rebecca Baran-Rees, vice president of policy and community development at the Santa Fe-based early childhood advocacy group Growing Up New Mexico, which also operates its own child care center for children up to age 5.
Before the expansion’s start date, about 4 in 5 New Mexico families qualified for the state’s child care assistance program, which subsidized the cost of care for kids in households earning at or below four times the federal poverty level — or nearly $130,000 for a family of four.
As of Nov. 1, there’s no income limit to be eligible for a state-subsidized early childhood contract or the state’s formal agreement with a family allowing providers to take state funds to pay for their children’s care.
In other words, child care aid now extends to the 1 in 5 New Mexico families previously ineligible for it.
The governor and her administration have touted the expansion as making good on their promise to build a universal system for children’s services and that it would be a “game changer” for families narrowly priced out of the 400% eligibility cap.
But expanded eligibility doesn’t matter if families can’t find care — and many say they can’t.
‘Where’s the child care?’
Santa Fe mom Ifeoma Ozoma started searching for child care options before her daughter was born.
“I started looking into options and ended up deciding that it made more sense — financially, logistically, personally, etc. — to just not work until she was 18 months,” Ozoma said. “And then when she was 18 months, it still was going to be a huge headache to find somewhere she could go.”
It’s a common story in Santa Fe, where many families have the luxury of an urban environment, and some have the privilege of being able to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket each year for child care.
Ozoma had the resources necessary for a successful child care search, plus the financial stability to choose not to work for 18 months and a husband who works in public education. It begged the question, she said: If her family couldn’t find child care, who could?
“It’s not like we don’t have an understanding of how these things work,” Ozoma said. “There just isn’t enough supply for the demand here.”
That’s the case almost everywhere in New Mexico. As of 2025, there were just 32 child care slots for every 100 children under the age of 2 in the state, according to an early childhood accountability report from the Legislative Finance Committee.
The need is particularly acute in certain counties, the analysis shows. Santa Fe County, for instance, operates just 18 child care slots per 100 children 2 and under. The situation is even more dire in San Miguel County, which had just 5 child care slots per 100 children under 2. Union and Harding counties had no slots for children under 2.
The precise number of child care slots needed for children of all age groups in New Mexico is unknown, the analysis states, but “current demand likely remains unmet.”
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
Amanda Rachor’s experience demonstrates that. Her family, which lives in Tucumcari, is one of many in New Mexico that have struggled to access child care.
Her 2-year-old daughter has been on the waiting list for the small city’s only two early childhood care options for roughly a year and a half, she said. Racher and her partner have to work to support their family. That leaves her 14-year-old daughter, who attends school online, as the only option for care of her daughter during the day.
“It’s frustrating because [we] really do need to work,” she said. “… But where’s the child care?”
The state Early Childhood Education and Care Department acknowledges the shortfall as a key component of making good on the promise of free universal child care.
As part of the initiative’s rollout, the department announced plans to stand up 55 new licensed child care centers plus 120 new licensed child care homes and 1,000 new registered homes — both of which offer day care in a provider’s home, but have to meet different levels of state regulation.
So far, New Mexico has added 31 more facilities from July to December, data from the state early childhood department shows. Just 19 of those facilities were registered homes — far less than the state’s overall goal. But even as the number of facilities increased, slots in licensed centers declined during that time period, leading to a gain of only 10 seats.
Alongside a team of fellow parents, Ozoma is working to pressure local elected officials to prioritize child care expansion. She chairs Niños and Neighbors, a Santa Fe-based political action committee with accessible child care among its key policy priorities.
“It is really disappointing to live somewhere with so many resources — the U.S. in general, Santa Fe specifically — and still not have access to that safety net, especially for those of us who don’t have grandparents that we can rely on, don’t have the traditional villages that we would like,” Ozoma said.
New challenges for providers
At first, the shift to free universal child care felt overwhelming to Maria de la Luz Polanco Fallad, who has been running her own registered home-based child care in Albuquerque since 2013. As families searched for care, Polanco Fallad said she wasn’t sure how the expansion might affect her business or what benefits it might bring.
But by the time she talked it over with the families she serves — many but not all of whom already qualified for state child care assistance — Polanco Fallad came to a different conclusion: “This is amazing,” she remembered telling parents.
More than anything, the promise of child care paid for by the state brought relief to parents, Polanco Fallad said.
“Every time that I have one of my families come in and worry about how they’re going to pay next month or how they’re going to pay that week, and just telling them, ‘You don’t have to worry about it anymore’ — it has changed everything,” she said.
While many child care providers voiced their support for the state’s push toward a free universal system, the expansion brings new challenges and considerations for them, too.
As part of the child care expansion, the early childhood department rolled out new reimbursement rates for providers implementing the assistance program, including higher rates for centers that keep their doors open 10 hours a day, five days a week, and pay workers more than $15 per hour.
But some providers aren’t sold on implementing those incentives.
Michelle Chavez, who runs the Turquoise Child Development Center — one of the only care options available in Tucumcari — isn’t in the business for the money. She said she pays herself about as much as she does her teachers, who make between $16 and $20 per hour. She makes $18 per hour.
With such slim margins, Chavez said she’s not sure she will be able to take the state up on its offer for the new reimbursement rate, which would not support the mandated pay increases, especially among educators with more experience.
“There’s not enough,” she said.
At Desert Montessori School, a private school on Santa Fe’s east side, only about 10% of early childhood students are enrolled with child care assistance contracts through the state Early Childhood Education and Care Department.
It’s not a matter of demand. Even with most families paying annual tuition of about $15,000, Desert Montessori School has nearly enough potential young students on a waitlist to fill another early education classroom — even without accreditation from the American Montessori Society or the Association Montessori Internationale.
Of the school’s approximately 75 students, about 50 are 6 and under, said Keely Wirries, the head of school. The school already operates two classrooms for 2- and 3-year-olds, plus two more “primary” classrooms, serving 3- to 6-year-olds using Montessori principles.
“We are always on a waitlist for our 2- and 3-year-old program,” Wirries said.
For now, though, the school can’t accept state child care contracts from more than 10% of its early childhood population because state subsidies don’t entirely cover the cost of their care, Wirries said.
“Our reimbursement rate is not the same as our tuition rate, and so that creates a disparity between what we will make and what we need to make — to pay our teachers livable wages, to keep our doors open, to maintain the safety and integrity of our building,” Wirries said.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
The school is working to increase the number of students with state contracts it can accept. Attaining accreditation from Montessori professional organizations like the American Montessori Society and Association Montessori Internationale will increase the school’s reimbursement rate to cover their costs — but it will take two to three years to secure those accreditations, Wirries said.
“That’s our goal right now, is to become accredited and be able to really increase the number of ECECD contracts that we can accept,” she said.
Despite all of the questions and considerations it has brought to her own school, Wirries said she believes in the goal of free universal child care. It’s a point of pride for New Mexico, she said.
“I am very grateful that the governor has eyes on the industry I work in,” Wirries said. “I am very grateful that she’s trying to make this more accessible. And I think, like with any new program or any new initiative, there’s kinks that are going to be worked out.”
But she pointed out one other major point of uncertainty: whether the Legislature will approve funding for early childhood care subsidies for the next school year. Wirries said things might look “totally different” by the time the 2026-27 school year starts in August.
Cost of universal child care
Lawmakers say the state’s budget might not be able to withstand the cost of universal child care.
Economists recently informed legislators the total new money expected in fiscal year 2027, or revenue exceeding the current state budget, is $105.7 million, down from an August forecast of $484.8 million.
The early childhood department’s budget request for the coming fiscal year — about $1.2 billion — includes $160.6 million more for its child care assistance program alone, for a total program cost of around $660 million. Overall, the agency has asked for $196.2 million more than it received in the current fiscal year.
Much of the agency’s revenue comes from annual withdrawals from massive investment funds: about $500 million from the now $10 billion-plus Early Childhood Trust Fund and some $250 million from the $37 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund, according to September data from the State Investment Council.
Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee, said he supports expanding access to child care to as many families as possible.
However, he expressed serious misgivings about funneling even more money to the department given New Mexico’s projected tighter budget, and said the state would need to make difficult decisions about what to fund and where to cut.
“If [the governor] really wants the money, just tell us where to take it from,” he said.
Muñoz also expressed concerns the state would not be able to close gaps in rural or otherwise small communities that already do not have enough slots for their children. He added the state must focus on reaching families who need it the most, not those with the means to pay for child care.
Rep. Rebecca Dow, a Republican from Truth or Consequences who spent decades working in and advocating for early childhood education, said the financial feasibility of free universal child care doesn’t add up for her, either.
She expressed doubts about the sustainability of a system that does not require payments from any families, even those with means.
“I’ve advocated for high-quality, accessible care for all. Do I think that means free universal? No,” Dow said.
Sen. Michael Padilla, an Albuquerque Democrat who has long advocated to expand New Mexico’s early childhood system — pushing for years to create what is now a revenue stream of hundreds of millions of dollars annually for early education through investment funds and sponsoring legislation to create the Early Childhood Education and Care Department — lauded the state’s progress so far.
Still, he acknowledged it must work harder to expand capacity in child care deserts and said the early childhood department should use more coordinators in those communities who can help potential providers open centers.
He also said the state should consider a greater emphasis on making sure lower-income families can use child care slots, possibly by implementing copays for families with household incomes of $355,000 or more.
However, Padilla said the state should go all-in and then adjust the budget later on. He argued investing now in early childhood programs would provide the best return New Mexico could ask for and cited multiple child outcomes in which the state could see improvements due to increased child well-being. Those include reduced incarceration rates, less child abuse through programs designed to prevent maltreatment and higher academic proficiency rates.
“This is where the money should be spent,” he said.