GAO Finds State Department Reorganization Left It Unable to Track Its Own Workforce or $52 Billion in Programs

A Government Accountability Office report published September 30, 2026, found that after 2025 executive orders dismantled USAID and shifted its functions to the State Department, State could not produce evidence of the guidance it gave staff for deciding which foreign assistance programs to keep, cut or restructure. USAID terminated roughly 6,780 of its 7,510 awards, worth $79.1 billion, while State absorbed remaining programs valued at $52.1 billion; USAID's own staff fell from about 13,600 employees to 241. GAO also found State's own records could not reliably show the size of its post-reorganization workforce.

"State also could not provide evidence of its guidance to staff including standards for making foreign assistance changes," auditors wrote, warning the gap risks inconsistent decisions and wasteful spending. The finding adds to a pattern of oversight reports -- including an earlier GAO review finding DOGE's claimed $110 billion in savings was unverifiable -- describing the administration's rapid agency restructurings as outrunning its own ability to document or manage them.

GAO issued three recommendations, including that State track workforce data and document its foreign-assistance decision-making; the report does not say whether State has agreed to adopt them.