Gov. Wes Moore said Wednesday he was confident in Maryland Human Services Secretary Rafael López, despite the many challenges the embattled state agency has faced.

Moore declared his public support for his hand-picked secretary hours after House Republicans called on the Democratic governor to fire López, citing a host of failures in the state’s foster care system. The governor’s remarks followed López’s Wednesday testimony in Annapolis about his agency’s repeated failure to properly care for youth in foster care.

“I know a lot of the challenges that people are debating right now are challenges that took place before our administration came on board, but the commitment that I have is that we are going to fix them in our time, that we’re not just going to kick the can down the road,” Moore said, adding that he was “confident and thankful” for the work López would “continue to do.”

The Republicans’ call for López’s termination came on the heels of The Banner’s report Tuesday night that the state had violated López‘s latest directive prohibiting foster youth from spending the night in unlicensed settings such as hotels, motels or office buildings. That directive, issued Oct. 22, was violated Sunday when a child had to spend the night in the Baltimore City Department of Social Services’ office while staff looked for an appropriate placement.

“After nearly three full years in office, we have little confidence that Secretary López is the leadership solution to these serious and systemic problems,” House Minority Leader Jason Buckel said in a statement.

López said he would continue to work to improve the department and win back the trust of Republicans and other lawmakers who feel he has fallen short.

“I respect the governor and the General Assembly,” he said. “And every day I will work relentlessly with my team to deliver the transformation of this department.”

At the center of all the back-and-forth was a long-awaited legislative hearing where López and his administration would face questions about a scathing audit last month that found the human services department had an array of issues regarding its foster care system.

Although alarming, many of the audit’s findings — that the state had repeatedly failed to investigate allegations of maltreatment in a timely manner or provide required medical and dental care to children in state custody — were not new.

In fact, the state Department of Human Services is the only agency that Legislative Auditor Brian Tanen could recall from his 30-year career for which the performance had been deemed unsatisfactory three times in a row.

Tanen, speaking to lawmakers, pushed back on any suggestion that local social services departments are responsible for the many problems identified by the audit. He urged lawmakers to demand change now, rather than further studying the problem and pledging change later.

“We don’t need to identify any more problems,” Tanen said. “We need to start addressing the problems that have been identified.”

Tanen pointed to the practice of housing foster children with complex needs in hotels instead of settings where they can receive specialized care or supervision as a clear example of an issue that has long been known but seldom acted upon.

The problem came to a head last month when a 16-year-old girl was found dead in the East Baltimore hotel room where she’d been living for at least six weeks. According to an autopsy report, the teen died by suicide.

“You had a blueprint for what’s wrong here,” Republican Del. Steven Arentz told López during Wednesday’s hearing. Arentz criticized state officials for providing “cavalier” answers about how to fix the problems and start providing adequate care for the more than 3,000 Maryland children and teens in foster care.

“You knew about this coming in. This did not have to happen,” Arentz said of the girl’s death.

López said the problems with his agency were “unacceptable,” a familiar refrain of his in recent weeks.

“I am not making excuses for this audit,” he added. “I cannot defend it, and I will hold my team accountable.”

However, the secretary took great pains to highlight to lawmakers the progress he believes the department has made in addressing issues such as hotel stays and children spending the night in office buildings.

“The way we are thinking about this is trying to bring a challenge to the status quo in Maryland,” López said.

As of Wednesday morning, there were five children in state care who were residing in hotels. All five, López said, would be placed somewhere more appropriate before the end of November.

Banner reporter Pamela Wood contributed to this article.