Inspectors general targeted for funding cuts in Trump’s FY27 budget

In 2025, Donald Trump fired nearly 20 inspectors general and replaced acting IGs at five agencies. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has been critical of the president’s federal workforce reforms, in an analysis published on Tuesday argued that the administration is seeking to further weaken the oversight offices through the budget process. 

Based on the fiscal 2027 budget request, which was released earlier this month, researchers found that Cabinet department IGs would receive an average of 12% less in funding than they did in fiscal 2024 (the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration.) The IGs at the departments of Interior and Justice would each be cut by 28%, which are the steepest declines. 

“Audits and investigations require time and resources,” the Partnership wrote. “A 28% budget reduction does not simply mean doing the same work more efficiently. It means doing less of it. Fewer audits conducted, fewer investigations opened and fewer recommendations made to agencies — and longer timelines for the work that does get done.”

Congress rejected many of Trump’s fiscal 2026 requests to significantly cut agency funding. 

Administration officials, according to the Partnership, project an average 9% reduction in staffing at Cabinet IGs, which is on top of a 10% average workforce cut at the agencies that occurred in 2025. Likewise, the Public Citizen nonprofit found in a March report that the overall number of IG employees has shrunk by about 12% as a result of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the civil service. 

While the number of vacant IG positions increased after Trump’s mass firings, the Senate has only confirmed eight of the president’s IG nominees — most of whom previously worked in Trump’s first or second administration.

Cheryl Mason — the IG for the Veterans Affairs Department, who previously served as a senior adviser to VA Secretary Doug Collins — in March was elected as the chairperson of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. The Trump administration had blocked fiscal 2026 funding for the watchdogs’ central group but backtracked after pressure from Senate Republicans. 

Partnership researchers reported that the five IG offices with the deepest proposed cuts across budget and staffing do not have permanent leadership. 

“An office operating under an acting inspector general, with a staff 21-35% smaller than it was two years ago and a budget facing further cuts, is not simply a leaner operation,” they wrote. “It is a fundamentally hampered one.” 

The Project on Government Oversight nonprofit argued that cutting IG offices ultimately hurts the country’s financial outlook, pointing to data that every dollar spent on IGs in fiscal 2024 yielded $18 as a result of their work to root out fraud, waste and abuse. 

“Investing in inspectors general invests in effective government,” said Caitlin MacNeal, POGO’s communications director, in a statement to Government Executive. “Firing inspectors general and slashing their budgets undermines accountability."

Mark Lee Greenblatt, who was IG at the Interior Department before he was fired by Trump, contended that the proposal to cut spending on the watchdog offices contravened the administration’s effort to combat fraud.

“If the goal is to fight fraud, the IGs should be getting larger budgets – not smaller,” he said in a statement to Government Executive.  

Administration officials have previously said that IGs have become “corrupt, partisan and in some cases, have lied to the public.” During his first term, Trump fired the IG whose notification to Congress led to his first impeachment.