Eleven days into his job as commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, Schatz is still listening.
“At this point, I’m in learning mode,” he said in an interview this week.
While he doesn’t have specific goals, Schatz, 60, knows where he will focus his attention: child protection, housing and homelessness, “safety net” services and substance abuse.
If, by the end of his tenure, he has initiated improvements in those four areas, he will count his time successful.
“That’s all I can ask of myself … to be thoughtful and do my best,” he said.
Schatz said he took the job because interim Secretary of Human Services Harry Chen asked him.
His career until now has been as an attorney in many capacities but always in public service, something he said is important to him.
Schatz was most recently general counsel for the Agency of Human Services. He served 18 months until Chen tapped him for the commissioner position on Sept. 8. Former Commissioner Dave Yacovone resigned to take a job as executive director of Sterling Area Services Inc. in Morrisville.
Despite criticism of the department because of several recent child deaths involving toddlers who were in some way connected to DCF, Yacovone and Gov. Peter Shumlin said Yacovone left voluntarily.
Schatz was city attorney in Burlington until 2012. Schatz also served as a juvenile defender and as an attorney for the Mental Health Law Project and Vermont Developmental Disability Law Project. He spends his free time running and is training for a half-marathon.
The South Burlington resident graduated from University of Vermont in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in social work and later received a law degree from Cornell. His salary a commissioner is $110,302.40. His city pension is about $40,000, Burlington officials said.
Schatz this week discussed the vital and sensitive role department plays in child protection. It’s easy to say the Vermont Department of Children and Families wants to protect children, Schatz said, but state also has an obligation to respect family privacy.
“In order to protect children sometimes we, on behalf of the state, need to take action to separate the child from the family,” he said.
The recent child deaths are tragic, the new commissioner said. They also started a conversation about how the department can improve itself. Schatz said he is interested to see what type of policy proposals surface from a legislative committee investigating the state’s child protection system.
“We can’t put too much emphasis on reunification. It needs to clearly have as the priority (the) protection and safety of the child. But you know, again, on an individual, case-by-case basis those can be challenging decisions. And that’s hard,” he said.
He said he admires and respects the role of social workers and wants to make it easier for them to continue their education, reduce their caseloads and reduce turnover.
Schatz has attended some legislative panel hearings and has heard concerns about caseloads, turnover, policies, IT setbacks and a lack of third-party service providers to whom social workers can refer families.
“There’s no simple answers here, there’s no panacea,” he said.
He said he’s still getting up to speed on policies and practices, including a system known as differential response, and “nothing is outside the realm for me in terms of review.” Differential response allows workers to respond less forcefully to cases that appear to be less serious.
The commissioner plans to meet not only with more DCF staff but also state’s attorneys, the defender general, attorney general and the courts, to hear their perspective on the child protection system, he said.
Substance abuse problems have intensified since he worked in courtrooms, he said. Schatz wants to understand how DCF can provide incentives for people to undergo treatment and monitor care to see whether parents meet the needs of their children.
Schatz has also said he wants to probe the topic of homelessness and create more long-term housing, as well as better options for short-term housing.
DCF manages food stamps, fuel assistance and other so-called “safety net” programs. Schatz wants to evaluate the economic benefit programs.
The Agency of Human Services is considering splitting up the agency, dividing the economic services from the child protection sector. Schatz said he’ll leave that recommendation up to the governor and secretary.
Robert Appel, a former defender general and executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, said he’s known Schatz since he was a public defender in the 1980s. They went to criminal defense trial school together in Macon, Georgia.
Appel said he was not shocked to hear of Schatz’s appointment. He is straightforward, diligent and not overbearing, Appel said.
“I knew he was ready for something different. This is pretty different. I think he’s up to the challenge,” Appel said.
