Lopez Says Agency Working To Address Foster Care Issues After Scathing Audit

By Bryan P. Sears, Maryland Matters

October 30, 2025

The Maryland secretary of Human Resources repeatedly insisted to lawmakers Wednesday that he and his staff are working to transform an agency that was the subject of a scathing audit and responsible for the care of a teen who died while in foster care living in a Baltimore City hotel.

A 70-page report issued by the Office of Legislative Audits identified more than a dozen issues, many repeat findings with some dating back to 2008. Among them, findings included failure to ensure adults with criminal backgrounds didn’t have access to children and that seven registered sex offenders were found living in homes with children under court-approved guardianships.

Secretary Rafael Lopez told lawmakers that many of the problems in the agency were inherited.

“Let’s be real clear, we largely agree with the audit’s findings and no matter where and how the problem started, we own our responsibility to deliver solutions, and we’ll partner with you to lead this transformation, because that’s what Marylanders deserve,” Lopez said. “The safety and well-being of Maryland’s children have been our highest priorities.”

Lopez recounted a list of policy changes made to address some problems, including standardizing criminal background checks, standardizing contracts for one-on-one providers and ending the practice of placing some children in foster care in hotels.

But Lopez and his staff disagreed with audit findings that said the agency had the ability to do background checks on adults living with children in court-approved guardianships.

State may have put children in homes where registered sex offenders lived

“As of right now, we do not believe that we have the statutory authority that you are citing right now,” Lopez said, adding that he would work with lawmakers to find a way “in which to do that constitutionally.”

Some members of the Joint Audit and Evaluation Committee disagreed with Lopez’s assertions that court-approved guardianship curtails the agency’s ability to do background checks.

Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Howard and Anne Arundel County) said after the meeting that Lopez’s testimony felt lacking.

“These are difficult and complex issues,” Lam said. “The really frustrating thing is that they could have figured all this out earlier.”

Lam said he expects some legislation in the 2026 session, which may or may not include a workgroup to look at fixes for tougher issues.

Legislative Auditor Brian Tanen told lawmakers his staff believes state statutes and regulations give the agency the legal authority to do checks. But he added that department staffers need to approach the issue thinking as if they were parents protecting their own children.

“So, there’s probably room in between to fill in some of the gaps, in particular related to their response to the guardianship homes,” Tanen said. “We certify the guardianship home. We take the children, we place them there … we have a responsibility to make sure that we’re putting the children in a home that is safe, not on the one day that we walk them across the threshold.”

Tanen said the agency should “look at that and say, ‘If it was my child, what would I want before I put them in this home?'”

The three-hour committee hearing was punctuated by moments of frustration from some lawmakers.

Del. Steven J. Arentz (R-Upper Shore) said agency responses to audits far too often feel like “what I could have wrote.”

“We get a little bit of a list … ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ and ‘We’re going to fix this problem,” Arentz said. “Four years later, with a history — not your history necessarily but a history — we’re repeating them [the findings] when you knew about them coming in and they’ve not been addressed.”

Webster Ye, Lopez’s chief of staff, acknowledged the agency is “on the equivalent of academic probation” because of the audit and its repeat findings. He said the agency is “moving forward so that we are positioned in the next couple of years to eliminate that repeat finding and to change our departmental culture so that it doesn’t happen again.”

Some on the committee did not seem swayed, and suggested legislation might be needed to bring reforms. The committee is awaiting a “deeper dive” review by the Department of Legislative Services Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability.

“It’s great to identify problems. That’s how I make my living,” Tanen said. “Fixing the problem requires people who are specialized and focused in the areas that we’re identifying, and that’s where we’re running into the problem. And I keep saying, they don’t need more audits. We’re auditing the information. There’s nothing changing.”

Tanen said there is growing frustration over the repeated findings in audits of the department. But he said the agency, absent additional legislation, can address many of the issues it faces.

“There’s 14 findings, a lot of repeats. It’s unsatisfactory, but there’s not a lot of disagreement. And for the most part, they’re saying, we’re working on this, and they put in some effort.”

The latest audit found that the department may have approved guardianship homes for children in state care where registered sex offenders lived, and that it failed to identify a convicted sex offender who worked in a group foster home and later faced criminal charges involving children under his care.

Five days after the audit was released, the body of Kanaiyah Ward, 16, was found Sept. 22 in a room at a Residence Inn by Marriott. The teen, who was in state care, had been living in the hotel on N. Wolfe Street in Baltimore.

An autopsy concluded that she died as a result of an overdose of diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter allergy medication.

“The vast majority of the findings in here … their governance already allows them to go and address the process,” Tanen said.