DCF Chief Katz To Step Down In January
Joette Katz, commissioner of the state Department of Children and Families, said in an agency-wide email Friday that she is leaving her post in two months, in time for Gov.-elect Ned Lamont to put his own stamp on an agency that has reduced the institutionalization of children, but has seen some toddlers and teens die while under DCF care.
Katz, a former state Supreme Court justice, was appointed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2011. She came to be highly regarded by think tanks and national foundations, but ill-fated foster care placements, the inability of her team to get inside the home of starving teenager Matthew Tirado, her insistence on
a locked ward for girls that later closed, and her decision to send a transgender girl to adult prison made her a lightning rod of controversy at home.
She broke the news of her upcoming departure to her staff with a trademark phrase: “I want to be very clear,” she said in the email, “that my decision, which came after much soul searching, is not a reflection of how difficult or challenging the job is, or out of concern that the new governor would say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ ”
She said she decided to step down “because I strongly believe that the department needs a honeymoon phase … when everything is fresh and exciting!”
She said she had enjoyed a long period of cordiality and acceptance — “four years to be precise, when we got major legislation passed, changed practice, and garnered great support and much good will at the LOB,” referring to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
But while Katz has maintained important support from some legislators — such as state Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, cochair of the children’s committee — the good will and even trust has eroded to a large extent. Investigations by the Office of the Child Advocate revealed an overuse of restraints and seclusion at the juvenile jail in Middletown and omissions, gaps, and mistakes in individual child protection cases that led to the injury, and in some cases, the death, of children. The recent suicide of a pregnant 16-year-old at the Solnit children’s psychiatric center in Middletown followed a string of suicide attempts by other children at the center, and the facility was found to be placing young patients in “immediate jeopardy.”
In February 2017, the state Senate voted 25-8, and the state House voted 110-36, to crush a proposal that Katz had reached with the plaintiffs in a landmark child neglect case that led to federal oversight of the agency nearly 30 years ago. The agency would have been gradually released from the court’s purview, but only if DCF’s $800 million budget was shielded from cuts. Lawmakers bristled at the notion of letting go of the purse strings, and Katz had no markers to call in.
She said in her email on Friday that leading the sprawling DCF is “by far, the most difficult job in state government.”
She said that as she steps aside, and Lamont appoints a new commissioner, “the department as a whole will be the secondary beneficiaries of the honeymoon!”
“I want to be very clear that my decision, which came
after much soul searching, is not a reflection of how
difficult or challenging the job is, or out of concern that
the new governor would say ‘thanks, but
no thanks’.”
Joette Katz, in an email to DCF staff