Voice of America is costing US taxpayers an estimated 1.6 million dollars (£1.2 million) a week, despite most of its operations being halted and hundreds of staff remaining on paid administrative leave.
About 420 employees were still on leave in July, creating an estimated annual cost of 82.8 million dollars, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The continuing expense followed the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle much of the broadcaster and the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
USAGM said the employees’ pay amounted to 3.2 million dollars every two weeks. The administrative leave continued because of legal proceedings surrounding a reduction in force carried out in August 2025.
Voice of America shutdown left staff and assets in limbo
The OIG said USAGM had not shown that it properly assessed the operational consequences of losing experienced personnel. Technical facilities and the support staff responsible for them were not adequately considered when decisions were made about who should be placed on leave, it found.
The agency was also unable to verify 99% of the documentation relating to the disposal of broadcasting equipment, infrastructure and property during the downsizing.
“Without complete and reliable records, transparency over property and lease management activities is reduced,” the report said. It added that the absence of documentation increased the risk of “unverified disposal activity and loss or mismanagement of agency assets”.
The inspector general further found that USAGM could not demonstrate that it had considered the effect of the cuts on the organisation’s credibility. The suspension of services led to lapses in digital production and broadcasting, which the report said had a “significant impact” on US priorities.
Voice of America broadcasts news digitally, online and on mobile platforms in 49 languages to more than 361 million people around the world. It is one of six organisations overseen by USAGM.
In March 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order directing USAGM to eliminate non-statutory functions and reduce its remaining work to what his administration described as the minimum required by law. The move followed criticism from former news correspondent Dan Robinson, who had described the broadcaster as a “rogue operation” in an opinion article the previous November.
Following the order, 994 of VOA’s 1,147 federal employees were placed on administrative leave, while 594 of its 602 contract workers were cut. Most broadcasting was stopped, ending uninterrupted operations that had continued since the Second World War.
However, in March 2026, US District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the attempt to wind down USAGM was unlawful and ordered more than 1,000 employees back to work.
“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,” he wrote.
