New Mexico

Celebrating a tax win for New Mexico’s kids and families

Published

2 years ago

March 10, 2024

Celebrating a tax win for New Mexico’s kids and families

Angela Garcia and Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena
| Las Cruces Sun-News

As mamas, we know that having kids changes how you see the world. Figuring out how to keep your little ones safe and healthy, so they can grow up to thrive, is a worry that doesn’t go away. Finding access to high-quality care for our children has felt nearly impossible, and for too many, affording that care truly is impossible. Yet parents across New Mexico deserve peace of mind, and all our kids deserve a bright start in life.

In the recent legislative session, we just made that a little easier. After nearly six years of advocacy, we exempted the Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) on childcare, for those eligible for state childcare assistance contracts and state Pre-K services.This small but important change to our state’s tax code is a win for New Mexico’s families.

Typically, businesses pass GRT down to their consumers. Yet many childcare providers have been shouldering the cost of this tax because the families they serve simply couldn’t afford it. The GRT has been a significant operating expense, particularly for those serving our most in-need communities. For many providers, this expense has limited their ability to recruit and retain staff or purchase classroom supplies. Other providers have had to pass this tax on to families who are already struggling to make ends meet.

By creating opportunities for parents to pursue further education or participate in the workforce and support their families, childcare providers play a critical role in our economy. A vast and still growing body of research also shows that childcare providers play a pivotal role in children’s development and wellbeing—with kids who get quality early childhood care having better outcomes throughout their entire lives.

But it’s also important that we support and trust the people who provide the childcare that we all depend upon. Many of those caring for our kids and helping to power our economy are women of color and unfortunately, all too often these voices are excluded from the spaces where policy decisions are made.

Our capital can be a challenging place to navigate, especially for newcomers to state politics. Not everyone in Santa Fe was ready to shift tax policy on the insight shared by childcare educators who own these small businesses. For decades, too many well-intentioned policy makers have been comfortable assuming they know best for New Mexicans. But representation and perspective matters, so we kept showing-up, asking for meetings, and creating spaces for parents to speak for themselves.

Year after year, as New Mexicans elected more lawmakers who reflect the diversity of our state, we built more bipartisan support for eliminating this GRT. Pragmatic legislators holding new leadership, including Indigenous people, women of color, and working parents themselves were listening and trusted our knowledge of the issues impacting the communities we come from.

Given how essential childcare is to the wellbeing of our communities as a whole, we are incredibly proud that New Mexico is becoming a leader in early childhood care and education. We can do right by New Mexicans when we center the expertise of everyday leaders that hold our most challenging issues close to heart. Now with this tax reform, alongside other initiatives to bring our values closer to reality, high-quality childcare will be within reach for more kids and families that need it.

Representative Lara Cadena is Vice Chair of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee. Angela Garcia is the Owner of The Toy Box Early Learning Child Care Centers in Las Cruces and Co-Founder of Full Circle Children, Family, and Educator Services.

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New Mexico

Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”

Published

6 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”

A 10-year-old New Mexico boy says Timothy Busfield “touched his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area” during production on The Cleaning Lady, an Albuquerque District Attorney–approved arrest warrant issued today says.

“In my training and experience, pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets to tickle and touch SL on his penis and buttocks, masking it as play,” the warrant from Albuquerque Police Officer Marvin Brown asserts. “He would invite the family to off-set gatherings, with his wife buying Christmas gifts to foster closeness, making SL feel special and dependent—classic grooming to erode boundaries, isolate the victim, and silence suspicions by blending abuse into normalcy.”

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Filled with accounts from two brothers of their alleged repeated experiences with the Thirtysomething alum, who was a director on the now shuttered Élodie Yung-led Fox drama from Warner Bros TV, the document charges Busfield with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse. It is unclear at this point if the Emmy winner has been arrested and booked by Albuquerque Police Department.

If found guilty of the charges, Busfield could face a minimum of three years behind bars.

In fact, the 68-year-old, who was accused but never charged in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, could be looking at a lot longer sentence in the Land of Enchantment.

Under New Mexico statutes, prison time in sex crimes against minors leans heavily on context and circumstances in the degrees of punishment they hand out. That time and felony class can go up substantially if the crime involves children under 13 years of age — as it allegedly does here.

Named as “SL” and “VL” in the warrant, the two 2014-born boys appeared on The Cleaning Lady over multiple seasons before being let go for having aged out of the role, I hear. However, in a Nov. 3, 2025 phone interview with Busfield in the warrant, The West Wing vet told investigating Officer Brown that he “the lead actress, Elodie Young” informed him over a year ago that “the mother of SL and VL (sic) that she wanted revenge, and I’m going to get my revenge on Tim Busfield for not bringing her kids back for the final season.”

Courtesy of Fox

In interviews conducted with SL and VL on Halloween last year by a “forensic child interviewer,” and observed by Officer Brown, today’s arrest warrant says that the former told them the alleged abuse by Busfield started when he was 7 years old and on The Cleaning Lady.

“SL said that Tim touched him three to four times on his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area over his clothing,” the 12-page arrest warrant states of what is cited as a second incident with Busfield, very similar to a previous incident. “SL said he was very afraid of Tim and was relieved when he was off set. SL said he was afraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and he feared Tim would get mad at him. SL did advise that Tim touched him while he was only on set filming in Albuquerque.”

SL now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, the warrant says. SL disclosing having nightmares about the director touching him and waking up scared,” the document adds.

It goes on: “VL explained that Mr. Tim started touching them for the first two years, and he did not want to say anything, because he did not want to be mean to him. Therefore, VL did not say anything. VL said Mr. Tim would start touching him with his hands about his body while they were filming in the ‘house’. VL advised that it was about his body, but did not disclose that he was touched on his buttocks or penis area. VL said he did not like being touched, but did not say anything because he did not want to get in trouble.”

The matter actually first came to the cops’ attention in late 2024 when a doctor from University of New Mexico Hospital contacted the Albuquerque Police Department in regards to a “sexual abuse investigation.”

Noting that the boys’ father had been advised to go to the hospital by a local law firm, today’s warrant details: Officer Osborn talked with both VL and SL, who did not disclose any sexual contact at this time. However, both boys advised that Timothy Busfield, whom they referred to as ‘Uncle Tim’, would tickle them on the stomach and legs. Neither boy cared for the tickling. Officer Osborn contacted Detective Michael Brown with the Crimes Against Children Unit and determined that the case did not meet their acceptance criteria at this time.”

The matter came back to the police’s attention and became a much greater priority after the boys’ mother “advised that on 09/02/2025, SL reported to his counselor that Timothy Busfield touched his penis and bottom.”

In that same telephone conversation with Busfield in the weeks before Thanksgiving last year, the NYC-based filmmaker also dropped to Officer Brown that producers Warner Bros TV had conducted its own probe into allegations against him after SAG-AFTRA received an anonymous complaint in early 2025 of an incident on The Cleaning Lady set in December 2024. After writing up a search warrant for WB (which today’s warrant seems to mistakenly say occurred on “10/03/2025”) and several correspondences with WB attorney Richard Wessling at law firm Proskauer, Officer Brown on NYE last year got his hands on the March 31, 2025 external report put together by the LA office of Solomon Law.

Specifically the report, which saw Busfield suspended during the probe, looked into claims from the hotline caller that there was evidence of Busfield “tickling and caressing the head and body of minor boys” while working on the Albuquerque-filmed Cleaning Lady. Upon his own reading of the document, Officer Brown says in Friday’s warrant that Solomon investigator “Christina McGovern was not able to talk with anyone who would support evidence that Timothy Busfield engaged in this behavior.”

Working from what now seems to be limited accusations, the WBTV investigation viewed Busfield as “exonerated,” sources tell me.

In a statement to Deadline tonight, the Channing Dungey-led WBTV said: “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions. We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”

As well as speaking to the boys’ mother and father (who seem to have instigated and then ceased a civil suit on this), plus some Cleaning Lady production assistants and Make-up and Hair department staffers, today’s warrant also details a brief back-and-forth between Officer Brown and the series star Yung, who was a producer too.

“On 11/5/2025, I contacted Elodie Yung to set up an interview. Elodie agreed to meet with me at the Northwest Substation on 11/7/2025,” Officer Brown notes in his fairly comprehensive affidavit that e Albuquerque Assistant DA Savannah Brandenburg-Koch signed off on today. “I did initially advise Elodie that Tim Busfield gave me her name and said that she may have information about this case. On 11/06/2025, Elodie left me a voicemail declining to speak with me and said that she does not want to be involved with the investigation and that she would not have any information that could assist in this case.”

Busfield’s agents at Innovative Artists did not respond late Friday to Deadline’s request for comment on the arrest warrant and the charges against their client.

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New Mexico

New Mexico Public Education Department faces $35 million shortfall

Published

18 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico Public Education Department faces million shortfall

The New Mexico Public Education Department is facing a $35 million deficit, which it attributes to overpayments made to Gallup-McKinley County Schools, a claim the district disputes, arguing they are being wrongly blamed for the state’s funding mismanagement.

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