AN IVY ATT’Y BOSS AT ACS

Hansell a longtime pro with city, state & feds

A YALE-TRAINED lawyer with experience managing social service agencies will take over as commissioner of the city’s troubled Administration for Children’s Services, officials said Monday.

David Hansell, who has held top positions on the city, state and federal level, is set to to run ACS and its $2.9 billion budget.

Since Mayor de Blasio arrived at City Hall in 2014, ACS was run by Gladys Carrion, an ex-caseworker and former head of the state’s Office of Children and Family Services.

Carrion resigned in December after a series of missteps that began in May with the city Department of Investigation finding systemic ineptitude in the handling of abuse cases, including several where children died. She officially left the job on Feb. 3, and the state has ordered the city to hire a monitor, Kroll Associates, to oversee ACS.

De Blasio, speaking Monday night on NY1, said only that he plans to announce the appointment of a commissioner Tuesday. He said ACS has a noble but difficult mission.

“This is an agency that constantly needs to keep growing, keep improving because the work is incredibly difficult. The goal is to save every single child, and that is grueling, difficult work,” he said.

Just last week, de Blasio declined to give an estimated time of arrival for a new ACS commissioner, telling reporters, “I don’t do ETAs.”

Word of Hansell’s appointment leaked hours after the Daily News reported that caseloads for child welfare workers had grown beyond levels deemed acceptable by the city.

Hansell, 61, is seen as more of a manager and less of a social worker. His appointment was immediately praised by observers frustrated with the agency’s bungling of several abuse cases in which children died.

“His experience shows that he has real applicable relevant skills in managing a large agency like ACS,” said City Councilman Steven Levin, chairman of the General Welfare Committee, which oversees the agency.

Anthony Wells, president of Local 371, the union representing caseworkers, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the pick, noting that Hansell “has vast experience as an activist and professional in social services.”

Hansell graduated Haverford College with a psychology degree, then Yale Law School. He started his public career in the 1980s as a top lawyer for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

In 1997, he joined the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani as associate commissioner for HIV services, then stayed on with Michael Bloomberg’s team as chief of staff to the Human Resources Administration commissioner.

In 2007, Gov. Eliot Spitzer made him commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, where he greatly expanded eligibility for food stamps.

From 2009 through 2011, Hansell served the Obama administration as assistant secretary of health and human services overseeing child welfare programs.

He entered private practice in 2012 as head of the auditing firm KPMG’s global Human and Social Services Center of Excellence.

Robert Doar, a former human resources commissioner under Bloomberg now at the American Enterprise Institute, called Hansell “a very capable public servant. That’s a very tough job, and I’m glad they found somebody who’s up to it. He knows how these agencies work.”