Two Republican Senators on Tuesday urged the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to reverse its policy decision to stop funding the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).
The council is a watchdog group that supports oversight efforts by providing training and peer reviews for the 72 inspectors general across federal agencies. PRAC, a subcommittee within the council, was created under the 2020 CARES Act to oversee COVID-19 pandemic relief spending. Congress extended PRAC’s authorization and expanded its jurisdiction under the 2025 tax law.
According to The Washington Post, the OMB informed the council last Friday that it would not be providing funding for the fiscal year beginning October 1. The OMB has not issued a public statement explaining the decision. However, Armen Tooloee, a spokesman for the OMB, told the Post that the inspectors general community had become "partisan," despite its statutory role as an impartial oversight body.
In response, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) sent a letter on Tuesday to OMB Director Russ Vought, urging the office to restore funding. They argued that both the council and PRAC have bipartisan backing and that Congress has already appropriated funding for their operations for fiscal year 2026. Without these funds, they warned, both groups may be forced to furlough staff and suspend key oversight activities.
“Effectively defunding CIGIE—contrary to congressional intent—will disrupt numerous important oversight functions, including the oversight.gov website, whistleblower reporting portals, and activities designed to ensure the inspectors general community is held accountable,” they said in the letter.
Tammy L. Hull, acting chair of the council and inspector general for the U.S. Postal Service, notified congressional committees over the weekend that without funding, the council would have to furlough 25 permanent employees and suspend legally mandated functions.
Mark Lee Greenblatt, former inspector general of the Department of the Interior and a former chair of the council, expressed concern about the decision in a LinkedIn post. “Without this infrastructure, I fear that individual IGs will be isolated, their effectiveness diminished, and their ability to protect taxpayers’ interests severely compromised,” he wrote.
John Vecchione, an attorney with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, told the Washington Post that OMB has the legal authority to halt funding. According to Vecchione, the funds for the council and PRAC typically come from interagency transfers involving individual inspectors general offices, and the statute governing the council gives the OMB’s deputy director for management discretion over that spending.