It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration dismantled Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster, saying “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”—yet the agency is costing the government millions even as it stopped operations.
Voice of America, one of six entities that fall under the purview of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is a digital, web and mobile media outlet that broadcasts news to over 361 million people globally in 49 languages. In March 2025, President Trump cut the outlet and USAGM’s operations for financial reasons.
But as of July, about 420 VOA employees were still on paid administrative leave, costing taxpayers an estimated $1.6 million a week, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General. That puts the annual cost at an estimated $82.8 million.
“OIG found that USAGM could not demonstrate that it sufficiently assessed the impact that the loss of experienced personnel would have on operations,” the report read. “For example, OIG found that technical facilities and related support staff were not adequately considered when determining which employees to put on administrative leave.”
“Additionally, in a document that USAGM provided to one of its unions, dated August 19, 2025, USAGM estimated that the RIF, which was executed in August 2025, would result in payroll savings,” the report continued. “However, because of ongoing legal proceedings regarding the RIF, as of July 2026, USAGM continued to have 420 employees on administrative leave, which USAGM estimated cost $3.2 million biweekly.”
The inspector general also found that the agency couldn’t verify 99% of “documentation supporting the disposal” of broadcasting equipment, infrastructure and property related to VOA’s downsizing.
“Without complete and reliable records, transparency over property and lease management activities is reduced,” The report read. “This lack of documentation also increases the risk of unverified disposal activity and loss or mismanagement of agency assets.”
And according to the report, USAGM couldn’t demonstrate that it considered the impact of the reductions in operations on its credibility. The stoppage of services “resulted in lapses” of digital production and broadcasts, which the inspector general states had “significant impact” on “U.S. priorities.”
VOA’s shutdown
In November 2024, former news correspondent Dan Robinson wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Times stating VOA had become a “rogue operation.”
“I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media,” he wrote. “It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
Following the statement in March 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order directing USAGM to eliminate its nonstatutory functions and reduce its remaining operations to what the administration describes as the minimum required by law. The agency responded by placing hundreds of employees on administrative leave, terminating contractors and shutting down most VOA broadcasting.
“This order continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary,” the order read.
In the shutdown, 994 of its 1,147 federal employees were placed on administrative leave and 594 of the 602 contract workers were cut, according to the agency’s count. Broadcasting was also halted, the first time since the agency’s uninterrupted operation since World War II.
But in March 2026, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Trump’s effort to wind down USAGM was unlawful—ordering more than 1,000 employees back to work.
“In short, the defendants had no method or approach towards shutting down USAGM that this Court can discern,” Lamberth wrote. “They took immediate and drastic action to slash USAGM, without considering its statutorily or constitutionally required functions as required by the plain language of the EO, and without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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