The DOT Office of Inspector General
Summary
DOT's independent watchdog, funded at $113.0 million and 380 people in FY2026, returned an average of $17 for every $1 spent auditing and investigating the department from FY2021 through FY2025 -- the Good Citizen series' entry on the office policing highway, aviation, rail, and transit dollars.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
In the six months ending March 31, 2026, - issued 22 audit reports carrying 119 recommendations⧉ to the Department's operating administrations, work it says found $254.7 million in financial impact⧉. Its investigators opened 82 new investigations and complaints and closed 77⧉, producing 23 indictments or criminal informations and 25 convictions⧉ and $1.25 billion in financial impact⧉ -- almost entirely court-ordered restitution -- from cases spanning household-goods moving fraud to bribery in trucking contracts. The office also fielded 1,335 hotline contacts⧉ from the public and employees over the same six months.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
Congress enacted $113.0 million in salaries-and-expenses appropriations⧉ for - in fiscal year 2026, plus a $4.3 million transfer of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds⧉, for $117.3 million in total budget authority. That funds 380 full-time staff⧉ -- 367 paid from the annual appropriation and 13 more from carryover -- down from 390 FTEs in FY2025. Measured against the Census Bureau's 341.8 million U.S. residents⧉ as of July 2025, that appropriation works out to about $0.33 per person.
View data as table
| Office of the Secretary (OST) | 6 |
|---|---|
| Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) | 4 |
| Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Dev. Corp. (GLS) | 3 |
| Federal Transit Administration (FTA) | 2 |
| National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) | 2 |
| Surface Transportation Board (STB) | 2 |
| Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) | 1 |
| Maritime Administration (MARAD) | 1 |
| Multimodal (2+ agencies) | 1 |
Why is it good for society?
-'s own accounting puts a number on that oversight: from FY2021 through FY2025, its audits and investigations returned an average of $17 for every $1 spent running the office⧉, tallied in court-ordered fines, restitution, forfeitures, recovered improper payments, and funds the Department redirected to better use. The counterfactual isn't abstract: it's the moving company that keeps a family's furniture hostage for a second, invented fee; the contractor who inflates invoices the Department has no independent auditor to catch; the safety violation that keeps flying, driving, or shipping until someone with subpoena power looks.
- -'s FY2026 enacted budget ($113.0M) funds 380 FTEs, down from 390 in FY2025; the office's own FY2021-FY2025 average return on investment is $17 for every $1 spent.
- In the six months ended March 31, 2026, -'s investigations produced $1.25 billion in financial impact -- almost entirely restitution -- while its 22 audit reports found $254.7 million more.
Your handles.* Report fraud, waste, or abuse involving programs, contracts, or grants -- anonymously if you choose -- through -'s Hotline (1-800-424-9071, 24/7, or its online form). To see new audit reports, investigations, and Semiannual Reports to Congress as they post, sign up for DOT-OIG email updates.
Sources(4) ▾
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, About OIG (2026-01-22) — -'s own official statement of its statutory basis, mission, and reporting relationship to the Secretary and Congress -- the source for this entry's identity clause. No Artemis-sealed copy indexed for this URL; the capture above is a Wayback Machine snapshot fetched at read time, matching the page's own listed last-modified date (1/22/2025 per the page footer; content re-confirmed live 2026-07-16). oig.dot.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Semiannual Report to Congress, October 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026 (2026-04-29) — -'s statutorily required semiannual report to Congress (Inspector General Act of 1978), covering April 1, 2025-March 31, 2026's second half. Fetched as a PDF and read in full with pdftotext -layout -- the source for this entry's workload figures (audit reports, recommendations, investigations opened/closed, indictments, convictions, financial impact, hotline volume) and the audits-by-agency chart. No Artemis-sealed copy indexed for this URL; the capture above is a Wayback Machine snapshot fetched at read time. oig.dot.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Office of Inspector General Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Estimates (Congressional Justification) (2026-04-01) — -'s own FY2027 budget submission to its appropriations subcommittees. Exhibit II-1 (p.4) and Exhibit II-7 (p.10) give the most current dated FY2025 Actual/FY2026 Enacted/FY2027 Request summary of 's own budget authority and staffing -- the source for this entry's budget and KPIs and the FY2021-FY2025 return-on-investment figure (Section 1 Overview, p.1). Fetched as a PDF and read in full with pdftotext -layout. No Artemis-sealed copy indexed for this URL; the capture above is a Wayback Machine snapshot fetched at read time. oig.dot.gov · original document
- U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 national population estimate) (2026-01-27) — The Census Bureau's own Vintage 2025 national population estimate release, giving the U.S. resident population as of July 1, 2025 -- the per-resident denominator for this entry's cost-per-person KPI, per better_metrics.md's sourced-denominator discipline. Same document already sealed via Artemis for a prior Good Citizen entry (); reused here for the same national population figure. census.gov · original document
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The Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General was established by the Inspector General Act of 1978⧉, which created independent inspectors general across the federal government and gives - autonomy to audit and investigate without interference from Department officials. It sits inside but answers to two audiences at once: the Act requires the Inspector General to keep the Secretary of Transportation and Congress fully and currently informed⧉ of problems in the Department's programs, from air-traffic control to highway grants.