Maryland DHS secretary Rafael López resigning, citing health-related reasons

Maryland Department of Human Services leader Rafael López is stepping down from his position effective Monday, February 23, the governor announced.

Lopez stated that he is resigning as secretary for "health-related reasons."

"I will always be invested in making sure that our people have access to the services and support they need to thrive," Lopez said. "It has been an honor to serve in the Moore-Miller Administration and I am immensely proud of the progress we have made in service to Marylanders." 

The governor said the transition of leadership will start with Deputy Secretary Gloria Brown Burnett as interim secretary until April 1, followed by former Baltimore County Administrative Officer Stacy L. Rodgers, until the search for a new secretary is complete.

Lopez's accomplishments

According to the governor's office, the Maryland Department of Human Services helped promote better outcomes for youth in foster care by increasing kinship care placement by 30% through improved data sharing and family engagement.

Lopez was also instrumental in decreasing Maryland's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payment error rate from nearly 36%, the second-highest in the nation in 2023, to 13.64%, according to state leaders.

The department also made a major investment in ending child poverty and child hunger through Maryland SUN Bucks, which provided more than $75.5 million in federal summer nutrition benefits to more than 630,000 students in the summer of 2025, and more than $71 million in summer of 2024, according to the governor's office. 

"I am grateful for Secretary López's leadership, especially during one of the most challenging times in the history of our state," Gov. Moore said. "Secretary López built a more solid foundation for service, and together we will continue to build upon that progress." 

Audit finds DHS violations

Lopez has been under fire following the death of 16-year-old Kanaiyah Ward, a foster child who died after she overdosed on Benadryl in September 2025 in a Baltimore hotel where she was bring housed by the Department of Human Services.

Before her death, an audit of DHS found a number of other juveniles were also being housed under similar conditions, leading to many state Republicans and some Democrats calling for Lopez's firing.

The audit showed that the agency wasn't keeping up with state mandates. It revealed the department didn't have a process to coordinate with the sex offender registry. Records show children were placed in homes that matched the address of registered sex offenders.

The audit also highlighted that children were being housed in hotels, and detailed a case where a contracted worker in one of the hotels had a prior murder conviction. 

According to the audit, the state put 280 foster care children in hotels in 2023 and 2024. More than 80 of the children had lengthy stays of between three months and two years. It cost taxpayers $10.4 million for the rooms and care from private vendors. 

Housing foster children in hotels is much more expensive for the state. In one case, Maryland was charged more than $1,200 a day, the audit found.   

The audit continued to reveal that "numerous children for which there was no support that educational and health services were provided and who were placed in unauthorized settings without appropriate supervision."

Since Ward's death, multiple state leaders raised concerns about the practice of housing children in hotels and called for accountability. 

"We take the findings of this audit with the utmost seriousness," López said in October 2025. "In the one-and-a-half years of the four-year audit period during which I served as Secretary, our leadership team has moved with urgency and challenged the status quo not only with the Social Services Administration, but across the entire department." 

New DHS policy

The audit led to a new policy that prohibited DHS from housing minors in "unlicensed settings." 

The new guidance stated that all minors staying in hotels were to be moved to a "placement appropriate to their needs."

"I am looking into that with our team, and we will address it because ultimately, there is a directive in place and we would be very clear about holding our department accountable," Lopez said last October.

Maryland Republicans respond

Maryland Senate Republicans said Lopez's resignation does not stop the questions of accountability of prior issues, including the audit.

Lawmakers then pointed to the "unprecedented turnover" in three years under Gov. Wes Moore, which has seen nine cabinet secretary or equivalent senior officials leave the administration.

"Marylanders are seeing a pattern," said Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey. "When there are persistent management failures, troubling audit findings, and operational breakdowns, simply swapping out leadership does not fix the problem. The Department of Human Services has faced repeated and serious audit concerns, and the General Assembly will not turn a blind eye to those issues just because a resignation has occurred."  

Maryland Republicans who called for Lopez's termination say the audit report is among the most troubling downfalls of his tenure as DHS secretary.

"The audits coming out of this department are some of the worst I've ever seen," said Senate Minority Whip Senator Justin Ready. "As a member of the audit committee, I can tell you these findings reflect fundamental failures in internal controls and fiscal oversight — not minor clerical mistakes. Taxpayers deserve accountability, transparency, and real corrective action."