A scathing state audit has exposed what every patriotic parent feared: Maryland’s Social Services Administration repeatedly put vulnerable children into unsafe situations, including foster homes with registered sex offenders and hotel placements supervised by a man with a murder conviction. The report lays bare systemic failures—failed background checks, missed investigations, and children left in limbo while bureaucrats shuffle papers and excuses.
Auditors found seven registered sex offenders living at addresses tied to approved guardianship homes that were housing ten children, and they documented a case where a group home employee with a prior sexual assault conviction was later charged in crimes involving children under his care. The audit also details that hundreds of foster children were placed in hotels, where contractors billed taxpayers and oversight was effectively nonexistent.
This is not a series of isolated clerical errors; it is a decades-long pattern of incompetence and neglect. The audit shows that more than 1,600 foster children missed required dental exams and roughly 640 missed annual medical checkups, proof that the state isn’t even meeting the most basic duties of guardianship for these kids.
Taxpayers are paying for this failure in multiple ways: the audit found over $34 million in unrecovered provider overpayments, millions in lost federal reimbursements, and millions more wasted on expensive, unlicensed hotel placements. While children went without care, the money trail points to mismanagement and a system that rewards paperwork over protection.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed horror, but words and press conferences won’t save a single child. Conservative leaders and rank-and-file Americans must demand immediate accountability—criminal referrals where appropriate, emergency audits of vendors, and the suspension or firing of any official who signed off on these negligent placements. The people entrusted to protect children cannot be allowed to hide behind bureaucracy.
Secretary Rafael López’s letter attached to the audit claims reforms are underway, but tinkering around the edges won’t cut it when a convicted killer was allowed near kids in state care. The right response is swift, transparent action: criminal investigations, full reimbursement pursuits, and a complete overhaul of background-check procedures—followed by prosecutions for anyone whose negligence put children in harm’s way.
Americans who value family and safety should be outraged, not resigned. This is a call to action for citizens, conservative lawmakers, and honest prosecutors: hold hearings, demand resignations, and restore a system that prioritizes children’s safety over political narratives and budget gimmes. Our children deserve better than a state that treats guardianship as an afterthought.
