DCF Merits Review

DCF Merits Review

The state Department of Children and Families has nothing to fear from, in the words of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a "top-to-bottom, outside, objective review" of the agency, which costs taxpayers $1 billion a year. The point, after all, is to provide the best services possible for the children the agency serves.

Its record has been spotty. The agency is still trying to resolve a federal consent decree handed down 17 years ago. Although it has met the majority of criteria established by the court after the death in 1991 of infant Juan F., critical steps remain undone. This past summer, the agreement had to be renegotiated after the plaintiffs, impatient with lack of progress, asked that the agency be placed in federal receivership.