CT Lawmakers Question DCF Nominee Susan Hamilton

Connecticut lawmakers put Gov. Ned Lamont’s nominee to lead the state’s child welfare agency through a tough public hearing Thursday, raising questions about whether the Department of Children and Families is doing enough to protect vulnerable kids and whether its interim commissioner is the right person to fix it.

Susan Hamilton, who has served as DCF’s interim commissioner since September, faced the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee for a confirmation hearing. The session marked the first formal step in the legislative process to make her the agency’s permanent leader.

Hamilton brought a lengthy resume to the table. Lamont tapped her after her predecessor, Jodi Hill-Lilly, departed for a position with the Doris Duke Foundation. At the time, Hamilton was serving as DCF’s legal counsel. She previously held the role of undersecretary at the Office of Policy and Management, and she served as DCF commissioner from 2007 to 2011 under Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Reports from that earlier tenure, however, noted some slippage in the agency’s progress toward meeting children’s basic service needs.

Much of Thursday’s scrutiny centered not on Hamilton personally but on the department she has been running. Lawmakers pressed her on caseworker turnover, mental health services for children in state care, homeschooling oversight, and two high-profile cases that have kept DCF under a harsh spotlight.

The first involves a Waterbury man who was allegedly locked away by caregivers for decades. The second is the death of 11-year-old Jaquelyn “Mimi” Torres-García, whose body was found in New Britain last year. In both cases, the victims had been removed from public school to be homeschooled, and the alleged abuse went undetected by DCF despite the agency’s prior involvement with the families. The cases have intensified calls for better oversight of children who leave the public school system.

Hamilton acknowledged during her opening remarks that improving transparency and accountability at the agency is a priority. She said she wants to ensure foster children are placed with family members whenever possible and that the foster care system runs better overall.

“It’s about outcomes. We need to be able to measure what we’re all doing, what are we collectively setting as the goal for all of us. When we’re saying we want to see things improve, we need to have ways of measuring that, and that’s something that’s really important to me,” Hamilton said.

Lamont offered a firm endorsement in a statement Thursday. “Sue’s decades of service at DCF give her a deep understanding of the agency and the mission of protecting vulnerable children and families. I’m confident in her leadership at DCF and that she will continue the important work this agency does every day,” the governor said.

But that long institutional history is precisely what concerns some lawmakers. Children’s Committee co-Chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, questioned whether Hamilton is too embedded in the existing system to see its blind spots clearly. Maher said that in prior conversations with Hamilton, she came away feeling the interim commissioner lacks a compelling vision for where the agency needs to go.

Maher also pushed back on remarks Hamilton made about her time at the Office of Policy and Management, suggesting that budget and administrative experience alone does not translate into the kind of reform-minded leadership DCF needs at this moment.

The concern underneath Maher’s line of questioning is one that runs through the entire confirmation debate: Connecticut has cycled through versions of this conversation about DCF for years. The agency has faced repeated scrutiny over how it handles cases, communicates with families, supports its own workers, and monitors children once they leave the traditional oversight structures of public school.

Hamilton’s confirmation is not guaranteed. The committee will need to vote before the full legislature acts, and Thursday’s hearing suggested at least some members want more than institutional competence from whoever takes the top job permanently.

The agency oversees some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Whether lawmakers decide Hamilton’s experience is an asset or a liability will shape how DCF approaches the next chapter.