Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he will reappoint Joette Katz as commissioner of the Department of Children and Families during his second term beginning Jan. 7.
Malloy first appointed Katz in Jan. 2011. She previously served as a Connecticut Supreme Court Justice and as an assistant public defender and chief of legal services for the Office of the Chief Public Defender.
In a statement, Malloy credited Katz for reducing the number of children in DCF care and in out-of-state-care, and increasing the number staying with a relative or family friend.
The agency has also drawn its share of critics during Katz’s tenure.
A July report from the Office of the Child Advocate found that DCF had previous or open cases with half of the families of 10 young children killed by homicide in 2013 — the highest number in more than a decade.
Katz was also forced to defend the agency’s handling of a case involving a transgender teenager who was kept in an adult prison because she was deemed too dangerous to be kept in a DCF facility.
