Why the OIG Did This Audit
FEMA was responsible for providing Federal assistance to individuals affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. FEMA received about $98 billion in supplemental appropriations plus additional disaster relief funding to support its COVID-19 response and recovery effort.
What the OIG Found
This capping report draws upon 14 prior Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviews of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) pandemic response and management efforts and is intended to provide a strategic overview of issues that may impede FEMA’s mission effectiveness or efficiency in future efforts.
FEMA enabled more than $13.5 billion in COVID-19 funding to be spent on ineligible recipients and unallowable or unsupported costs. Additionally, as of April 2026, the OIG’s COVID-19 investigations identified large, organized fraud schemes resulting in 315 indictments, 303 convictions, and $131 million in restitutions. They say that these outcomes occurred because FEMA did not:
• implement controls to ensure COVID-19 funding went to eligible recipients;
• follow its policies aimed at ensuring pandemic funding was used for allowable costs; and
• maintain consistent data collection and management processes to inform decisions and allocate resources.
In fiscal years 2021 through 2025, the OIG issued 14 reports containing 45 recommendations aimed at improving FEMA’s oversight of COVID-19 pandemic funds. As of April 2026, 22 recommendations remain open (49 percent), of which 7 are unresolved. FEMA disagreed with 5 of the 7 unresolved recommendations and has not shared an adequate corrective action plan to satisfy 2 recommendations. See Appendix E for the status of each recommendation.
What the OIG Recommends
The OIG made no new recommendations and affirmed the unimplemented recommendations in their prior FEMA pandemic response reports, which are listed in Appendix E.
Read the full OIG report here.
