DHS Grants: Approach to Terminations and Pauses Disrupted Some Program Activities

Filed 1h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Farting Around

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: AndyHemmerCincinnati · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Following a February 2025 executive order directing agencies to work with DOGE to review and terminate grants within 30 days, DHS terminated 362 grants and deobligated about $1 billion, per GAO. Some disaster mitigation projects were delayed by nearly a year as a result.

GAO found DHS's rushed approach undermined its own goals: it did not fully achieve its planned spending reductions, and in some cases had to reverse course, including FEMA reallocating terrorism-prevention grant funds away from certain states, only to reinstate them after a court ordered it to.

DHS continues taking similar grant actions but, per GAO, has not incorporated lessons from the original scramble into its current approach. GAO recommended DHS build a process to apply those lessons before future terminations; DHS agreed.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A deadline built for speed produced a mess that needed a judge to sort out, and the agency's answer is to keep doing it the same way. Reversing a grant cut after a court orders you to is not efficiency, it is just delay with extra steps and legal fees. Agreeing with the recommendation is the easy part; incorporating it is the part that never seems to happen on schedule.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Farting Around · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID

OR FOLLOW THE DESK ON BLUESKY →