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A government inspector said on Wednesday that the Health and Human Services Department unlawfully stopped paying Head Start during the first few months of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Compared to 2024, HHS payments for Head Start this year were much behind track. According to a report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, that was against the Impoundment Control Act, which governs the president’s authority to spend monies that have been appropriated by Congress.
In some situations, the law—also known as the ICA—permits the president to withhold monies that have been appropriated. However, the GAO claims that HHS did not present a defense before the report was released, and the publicly accessible data did not demonstrate that those requirements were satisfied.
According to the report, “We conclude that HHS violated the ICA by withholding funds because that evidence indicates that HHS withheld appropriated funds from expenditure and because the executive branch and HHS bear the burden of justifying such withholdings.”
The report, signed by GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez, claims that prior to its release, HHS failed to give the GAO a legal analysis or the material the watchdog had requested.
But in a Wednesday email to States Newsroom, an HHS official denied the report’s conclusion and said the agency would reply to the GAO.
The spokesman wrote that HHS denies the GAO report’s findings and did not impound Head Start cash. GAO can expect a response from HHS soon, which it will include in a revised report.
How Head Start works
A government grant program called Head Start helps low-income families pay for pre-kindergarten programming. According to the research, up to 80% of a local program’s eligible costs are covered by the federal government. Head Start funding for social, health, nutrition, and education services was distributed to 1,600 organizations as of last year.
Grant approvals for Head Start funding organizations often last for five years. The report states that programs that are in good standing are automatically renewed.
The National Head Start Association, a group of grantees, said in a statement on January 28 that scores of Head Start grant recipients discovered they could not access the funding they had anticipated from HHS, just days after Trump took office in January.
In the first three months of the Trump administration, the department disbursed roughly one-third less grant funding than it did during the same period in 2024, according to GAO’s study. During those months, Head Start grants saw a decrease of $825 million.
In some situations, such as when grantees fail to achieve performance standards or become underenrolled, the statute does permit HHS to terminate funding for them before the conclusion of the five-year period.
However, the GAO report states that before funding can be cut off in those situations, HHS must notify the programs of possible grant reductions, give them a comprehensive plan they can follow to prevent grant cancellation, and give the grantee a fair hearing and the opportunity to request a refund.
According to the report, there is no proof that HHS followed any of those procedures before to slashing funding in January.
The president is not a king
In an extensive statement, Sen. Patty Murray, the leading Democrat on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, chastised President Donald Trump and his HHS for undermining a crucial program for working people and asserting Congress’s authority over spending decisions.
Murray stated that although Trump has indicated that he would prefer to do away with Head Start, it is not his decision. Instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to harm working families, President Trump should make sure that every penny of this funding is distributed in a timely and consistent manner going forward. He should also finally release the remaining investments that he has been stealing from the American people. Congress provided this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis.
The Senate Budget Committee’s leading member, Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon, emphasized the responsibility of Congress in allocating government funds and urged Trump and White House Budget Director Russell Vought to abide by appropriations legislation.
According to a statement from Merkley, the president is not a king and laws are not recommendations. We’re witnessing evidence once more that this government is flagrantly breaking the Impoundment Control Act. The congressionally authorized monies are more than just recommendations for Russ and Donald Trump. It is important to remember that hardworking families depend on these monies, and Head Start is crucial to ensuring that every child in our nation has access to opportunities.
ACLU lawsuit
The GAO report stated that litigation over the withheld funding is still underway, but it did not specify what additional steps the agency will take.
In April, the American Civil Liberties Union sued parents and Head Start funding recipients in federal court in Seattle.
The lawsuit detailed the pervasive confusion that Head Start organizations went through when they were unable to obtain anticipated federal funds, which was made worse by regional office support personnel reductions.
Lack of collaboration
The study linked a separate court battle involving a public website to HHS’s lack of involvement in the GAO’s probe.
According to the report, HHS has not given us the factual data and legal opinions we asked for about the possible impoundment of allocated funds.
The watchdog relied on publicly available data to make its conclusions without consulting the administration.
The watchdog claimed that the White House Office of Management and Budget put a barrier to that work.
According to the GAO report, the office deleted agency apportionment data from its public websites, which goes against both OMB’s obligation to make such information available to the public and GAO’s statutory power to access such information.
Regarding that matter, a federal judge on Monday mandated that the Trump administration once more release information regarding the rate at which it intends to use congressionally allocated funds.
In his decision, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stated that Congress has broad jurisdiction to mandate that the president publish a website that outlines how it distributes public funds all year long.
