Giuliani’s Lauded ACS Commissioner In Frequent Contact With Current Head

Mayor Giuliani’s commissioner of children’s services, Nicholas Scoppetta, has been informally but regularly talking to Mayor Bloomberg’s official who has been blamed for the deaths of several children.More than a decade ago, a little girl named Elisa Izquierdo became the poster child for the city’s flawed child welfare agency in much the same way 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown has since she was beaten to death last month.At the time, Mr. Giuliani tapped Mr. Scoppetta to get the system in order and oversee the creation of the Administration for Children’s Services, which for the first time brought foster care, adoption, and other child safety services under one umbrella.Mr. Scoppetta, who spent seven years in foster care as a child, is credited with transforming the system, partly by securing an infusion of money for upgrades and improving everything from computers to training.So some may be wondering whether Mr. Scoppetta, now the commissioner of the city’s Fire Department, has played a role in working with the beleaguered agency since Nixzmary Brown’s death.Yesterday, Mr. Scoppetta said he talks to the current ACS commissioner, John Mattingly, on a “regular basis,” but that their conversations are informal.“It’s always informal and it’s always as two people who’ve been down this road and have to deal with these kinds of events,” Mr. Scoppetta told The New York Sun during a phone interview.“I don’t want to pretend that I’m any kind of consultant to John,” he said. “We’re friends, we’re colleagues, we talk all the time, and I think he’s doing an excellent job. He’s running into some terrible events that he’s dealing with, but he’s doing an excellent job and he’s extremely competent.”Mr. Scoppetta said his only official role in the response to the Nixzmary Brown case is the Fire Department’s participation in an “interagency” group. Mayor Bloomberg announced the creation of the group recently along with about $16 million of new funding for ACS.A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Paul Elliott, declined to comment on Mr. Scoppetta’s involvement in any conversations with the mayor on the child-abuse issue.The mayor has, in fact, stuck by Mr. Mattingly during the firestorm of criticism since Nixzmary Brown’s death, which came around the same time as the deaths of two other children in the child welfare system and the arrests of two ACS employees. One of those employees was arrested last week for allegedly raping and molesting his daughters. The other, Sharon Bines, an administrative assistant with the borough’s Family Court, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly slapping her daughter. Both employees have been suspended.Two child welfare advocates told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Mattingly was doing a good job and should keep his job as head of the agency.When asked what role Mr. Scoppetta should play, the executive director of the Child Welfare Fund, David Tobis, said: “My approach is that you get as much useful information as you can from whoever has ideas, but I think John Mattingly is the best person to lead the Administration for Children’s Services now and into the future.”The director of the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School University, Andrew White, said that each death has revealed “weaknesses,” but that there was no “systematic failure.”Others, including several newspaper editorial boards, disagree. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Mattingly were hammered yesterday by editorials in the New York Post (“Five Dead Kids, One Clueless Mayor”) and the Daily News (“ACS death toll keeps rising”).Mr. White said Mr. Scoppetta would be a good ambassador to help the public understand “how extraordinarily tough child-protective work is.”Both Messrs. Mattingly and Scoppetta – who are both on the board of directors for a nonprofit group called New Yorkers for Children – have their fans and their detractors, each of whom lob different criticisms about their styles.The director of New York Civic, Henry Stern, who is also a former commissioner of the city’s Parks Department, said the agency needs a “vigorous insider who knows the city and can shake up the agency.” He said: “Mr. Mattingly should consider whether he is the best person for that task.” He called Mr. Scoppetta “extremely knowledgeable” and said he “should be involved in solving” the current problems at ACS.“I think he has a great deal to contribute and should be consulted,” Mr. Stern said. “I wouldn’t make him commissioner at this point because he’s doing well in an important job.”Though Mr. Mattingly has been frank about mistakes ACS made, he has made it clear that he is staying.Yesterday Mr. Scoppetta said the key to cementing reform is “continuity in the agency.”

Giuliani’s Lauded ACS Commissioner In Frequent Contact With Current Head

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