More than 600 families are on the waiting list for UNM's child care program - a number GPSA says is unacceptable.
Graduate and Professional Student Association Council Chairwoman Lissa Knudsen said students need better access to child care facilities and that the GPSA tried to hire a lobbyist to ask the Legislature for money to expand UNM's child care program.
However, the University blocked GPSA's initiative to hire a lobbyist, Knudsen said.
She said GPSA had $20,000 from student fees and wanted to use the money to hire lobbyist Linda Siegle.
GPSA President Chris Ramirez and Knudsen contacted UNM President David Schmidly and the Board of Regents to discuss hiring Siegle.
Knudsen said Schmidly told her to meet with Director of Governmental Affairs Marc Saavedra, who rejected the plan.
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Saavedra was not available for comment.
University spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said the president and Saavedra did not want to hire a lobbyist because they already have one working on the issue.
Knudsen asked for another meeting with Saavedra, Schmidly, Associate Vice President Walt Miller and Vice President for Institutional Support Services Steven Beffort.
"We were dismayed because our constitution has a line under the lobby that it is within our right to hire a paid lobbyist," Knudsen said. "We are not trying to be adversarial. We just want clarification on who the ruling authority is."
Knudsen said GPSA wanted to hire a new lobbyist for child care because graduate students need a direct line to the Legislature.
She said the plan was to have graduate students shadow Siegle during the legislative sessions in Santa Fe.
"We felt that our situation was different and this person's job was primarily to teach us about the process," she said. "This was an opportunity for us to learn how to advocate."
McKinsey said UNM's existing lobbyists are taking care of the issue for the graduate students.
"They work on legislation, and they take it up to Santa Fe with attention paid to all of these initiatives," McKinsey said. "We are working with GPSA on a monthly basis to work on this initiative."
McKinsey said the Government Relations Office is also working to make child care more affordable for graduate students.
Knudsen said GPSA was going to have Siegle advocate for a $1.4 million capital outlay request for the second phase of the child care expansion during the next legislative session.
"None of UNM's lobbyists are doing that," she said.
Lucie Wang is part of the GPSA committee and has a child in the UNM program. She said the cost of child care is not the only problem parents face - she had to wait a year before getting into the program.
"Some parents have to wait two or three years," she said. "People are putting themselves on the list for the baby room two to three years before they are pregnant."
Wang said the issue of child care is getting bogged down in politics and that finding a solution has been harder than it should be.
"I don't understand why it even has to be an issue. I think that we all want the same thing, but the question is how are we going to get there?" she said.
Knudsen said she is worried families are going to have to pay more money to get their children into the program without the funding Siegle would have lobbied for.
"We want (the University) to hold a town-hall meeting where all constituencies could attend," Knudsen said. "If they agree with phase one, then we would be in support as well."
