FHFA Inspector General budget cut

FHFA Director Bill Pulte's FY2027 allocation of $20 million to the agency's Office of Inspector General, which the OIG says will end most of its criminal investigations, and the congressional response.

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2026-10-02 · housing

Pulte’s FHFA slashes mortgage fraud watchdog’s budget

Federal News Network

FHFA allocated $20 million to its Office of Inspector General for fiscal 2027, a 61.3% reduction from FY2026 levels and below the $55 million in the administration's own FY2027 budget request; FHFA's Sept. 30 release called the OIG "an extraordinary budgetary outlier among its peer OIGs," saying it had requested 16% of the agency's operating budget against a government-wide average of about 2%. Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General James Hodge wrote to Congress that the cut would force staffing reductions of 70-80% and "the discontinuance of essentially all criminal investigations." Eleven Senate Banking Committee Democrats called the decision unlawful in an Oct. 1 letter.

Federal News Network reported the OIG's criminal enforcement program has produced more than 1,270 convictions since 2011.