Nine Straight Years, No One Can Vouch for AmeriCorps' Books
Summary
For the ninth consecutive year, independent auditors could not verify AmeriCorps' financial statements -- a disclaimer streak dating to FY2017, with the agency's core internal-control-environment weakness on the books since FY2018. Among the figures auditors could not confirm this year: the $278 million liability for members' education awards -- the largest single line on the agency's books. In FY2025, AmeriCorps also canceled the contracts it had hired to fix the problem.
A control environment flagged every year since 2018
AmeriCorps' internal control environment -- the foundation the rest of a set of financial statements rests on -- has been cited as a material weakness every year since FY2018, the audit states, "despite the implementation of corrective action plans." AmeriCorps' own Office of the Chief Risk Officer runs an annual self-assessment against the 17 principles in 's Green Book, the federal government's standard for internal control. For FY2025, it found only one principle operating effectively. Ten operate "with deficiencies." Six -- including the principle requiring management to fix control problems on a timely basis -- don't exist at all. Following that assessment, AmeriCorps' Interim Agency Head issued a formal Statement of No Assurance, acknowledging the agency's system of internal control "does not currently provide the necessary level of assurance towards the effectiveness of internal control over operations, reporting, and compliance."
View data as table
| Exists and operates effectively | 1 | Only one of the 17 Green Book principles met this standard |
|---|---|---|
| Exists but operates with deficiencies | 10 | The largest group -- present on paper, not working as designed |
| Does not exist / ineffective | 6 | Principles 5, 10, 12, 13, 15, and 17 -- including remediating control deficiencies on a timely basis (Principle 17) |
The one number nobody can vouch for
The single largest liability on AmeriCorps' books is the $278 million set aside in the National Service Trust to cover education awards for members who complete their service terms. That figure is itself one auditors can't verify: AmeriCorps has not finished validating the actuarial model behind it, and the audit concluded it "is not feasible for the auditors to determine the reliability of data in AmeriCorps' Trust Liability balance and records." The Trust isn't an abstraction -- it's the mechanism that pays out the education awards members earn by completing their service, which means a liability estimate the agency's own auditors can't trust runs directly through members' benefits.
View data as table
| FY2019 | 25 | 25 of 27 FY2019 recommendations remain open |
|---|---|---|
| FY2021 | 6 | All 6 FY2021 recommendations remain open |
| FY2022 | 16 | All 16 FY2022 recommendations remain open |
| FY2023 | 19 | All 19 FY2023 recommendations remain open |
| FY2024 | 11 | 11 of 14 FY2024 recommendations remain open |
The fix itself got cut
AmeriCorps began working with outside contractors in FY2023 to build a plan for fixing its financial reporting and internal controls. In FY2025, the audit states, AmeriCorps terminated those contracts -- and as a result, "progress on improving financial reporting and the internal control program has stalled," with future plans "unknown to the auditors" as of the report date. AmeriCorps 's semiannual report to Congress supplies the reason: an April 2025 staffing reduction in which "key personnel and contract staff departed," materially impeding the very remediation effort meant to end the streak. The 's own forward-looking read, filed before FY2026 began: "any improvement in FY2026 is expected to be limited in scope."
- Nine consecutive years without an audit opinion -- AmeriCorps' FY2025 consolidated financial statements drew the same disclaimer of opinion the agency has received every year since FY2017.
- Only 1 of 17 federal internal-control principles operates effectively at AmeriCorps, per the agency's own FY2025 self-assessment; 6 of the 17 don't function at all.
- The $278 million National Service Trust liability -- the largest single number on AmeriCorps' books -- is itself unverifiable, auditors found, because the actuarial model behind it hasn't been validated.
- AmeriCorps terminated the contracts it had hired to fix the problem in FY2025, and says progress on financial-reporting reform has stalled as a result, tied to an April 2025 staffing reduction.
- 77 recommendations from the FY2019-FY2024 audits remain open, with the oldest cohort -- 25 of 27 recommendations from FY2019 -- still unresolved six years later.
A disclaimer of opinion means auditors could not gather enough evidence to say whether AmeriCorps' financial statements are accurate -- it is not, by itself, a finding that money is missing or that fraud occurred, and this audit alleges neither. Material weaknesses marked "Repeat" in the underlying report were first identified in an earlier year's audit and remain unresolved; "Modified Repeat" findings are substantially the same underlying issue recurring in a changed form. This piece describes findings and decisions by office and role (AmeriCorps' Interim Agency Head, the Office of the Chief Risk Officer) rather than by the name of any individual, consistent with how the audit itself frames its conclusions as agency-wide, systemic control failures rather than individual conduct.
Sources(3) ▾
- AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General, Audit of AmeriCorps' Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Financial Statements (OIG-AR-26-01) (2026-01-30) — The FY2025 consolidated financial statement audit, performed by Sikich CPA LLC under contract with AmeriCorps . Sikich disclaimed an opinion -- could not obtain sufficient audit evidence -- and reported 11 material weaknesses (all repeat or modified-repeat findings) and 2 significant deficiencies. Hosted on oversight.gov, 's official federal- portal; also linked from the AmeriCorps 's own report page (americorpsoig.gov). oversight.gov · original document
- AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General, AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General Semiannual Report to Congress, October 1, 2025 -- March 31, 2026 (2026-06-01) — AmeriCorps 's semiannual report to Congress, which states directly that FY2025's disclaimer of opinion was the agency's ninth consecutive one and links it to AmeriCorps' April 2025 staffing reduction. Also the source for the hotline contact details used in this piece's call to action. Hosted on oversight.gov. oversight.gov · original document
- AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General, Audit of AmeriCorps' Fiscal Year 2021 Consolidated Financial Statements (OIG Report 22-01) (2021-11-15) — The FY2021 consolidated financial statement audit (CliftonLarsonAllen LLP under contract with AmeriCorps ), cited here for its direct statement that AmeriCorps has been unable to obtain an audit opinion since FY2017 and that eight of the FY2021 report's nine material weaknesses were first reported in FY2017 or FY2018 -- establishing the start date of the unbroken disclaimer streak the FY2025 report and the 's semiannual report both build on. Hosted on oversight.gov. oversight.gov · original document
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For the ninth consecutive year, an independent audit could not verify AmeriCorps' financial statements. In its FY2025 consolidated financial statement audit.pdf), published January 30, 2026, AmeriCorps' Office of Inspector General reports that Sikich CPA LLC could not obtain enough evidence to issue an opinion on the agency's books as of September 30, 2025 -- finding 11 material weaknesses and 2 significant deficiencies, every one of them a repeat or modified-repeat finding from a prior year. AmeriCorps OIG's semiannual report to Congress⧉ puts the finding in context: FY2025 was the agency's ninth straight disclaimer of opinion, a streak that traces back to FY2017⧉.