A FEMA disaster assistance center set up to aid victims of January’s wildfires in Los Angeles.
(Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has mismanaged tens of billions of dollars over the years, according to numerous government reports on its spending.
The government agency’s response to COVID, hurricanes, floods and housing migrants have all come under fire for being wasteful and going largely unchecked — and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been sent in to analyze its spending.
The most recent audit of the embattled disaster response agency claimed it mismanaged nearly $10 billion during the COVID pandemic between 2020 and 2023.
FEMA even approved a grant of $1.1 billion despite it only being supported by only a single piece of paper with no itemized costs, a Jan. 30 audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found.
The request was also “not prepared by a licensed professional engineer or cost-estimating professional,” according to the 36-page report.
The Trump administration has called for a complete overhaul of FEMA, which has a slated budget of $65 billion for fiscal year 2025.
During the pandemic, $1.5 billion was doled out “for one state’s medical staffing” without the proper vetting and “could have been put to better use for other disasters,” the January audit found.
“These issues occurred due to the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and FEMA not following established requirements when delivering public assistance funding,” said the report, which did not name the states that received the FEMA pandemic payments.
It also cited $8.1 billion distributed by FEMA for “costs that have yet to be determined allowable,” according to the report.
A leading FEMA critic said there is “no doubt” the agency made a mess of COVID disaster relief. (Read more: New York Post, 2/12/2025) (Archive)