Inside FEMA's sickening history of misspending billions of taxpayers' dollars - and going largely unchecked | 11 Feb 2025 | The Federal Emergency Management Agency has mismanaged tens of billions of dollars over the years, according to numerous government reports into 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 -- as 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, the Jan. 30 audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found.