The Smithsonian's Collections Fund Approved Its Own Awards
Summary
A Smithsonian Inspector General audit found the National Collections Program had no written procedures for awarding or tracking the $5.2 million a year it hands out non-competitively for collections care -- and in fiscal year 2021, the program's own director awarded $345,800 of it to the program's own operations with no higher-level sign-off. Recipients missed or filed late 20 of the 22 spending reports OIG tested, one final report arriving 547 days overdue. Two Smithsonian units also kept paying a cryo-collections employee's salary with the same restricted funds and ran a single job through four consecutive federal term appointments spanning nearly 13 years -- both practices the fund's own rules were written to prevent.
A $5.2 million pool with no list of its own awards
The CCPF is the largest of the Smithsonian's six federal pools -- 35 percent of all pool funding in fiscal year 2021, when the Smithsonian allocated it $8,197,000. Of that, $3,000,000 went out competitively: a Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee subcommittee scores proposals, and three Under Secretaries sign off. The remaining $5,197,000 became the Collections Care Initiative, decided solely by the NCP Director. Units requesting CCI money don't file a formal proposal -- they simply tell the Director their idea and answer follow-up questions. Nothing in writing spelled out which units were eligible, what counted as an allowable project, or how a proposal should be evaluated.
The gap wasn't just on the award side. NCP "did not maintain a list of all CCI awards, the amounts awarded, and additional amounts transferred to and from individual projects" -- the basic bookkeeping called vital for oversight. Without it, auditors couldn't determine whether NCP had ever reviewed a single recipient's spending report for appropriateness. And in fiscal year 2021, the NCP Director approved five CCI awards totaling $345,800 to fund NCP's own operations, with no higher-level review of the awards NCP made to itself -- an arrangement found violates the Government Accountability Office's internal-control standards, which call for segregating duties specifically to guard against error, misuse, or fraud.
View data as table
| Competitive CCPF (reviewed, approved by 3 Under Secretaries) | 3,000,000 | Reviewed by the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee before award |
|---|---|---|
| Non-competitive CCI (no written procedures, no award list) | 5,197,000 | Awarded at NCP Director's sole discretion; OIG found no tracking list of awards |
Reports missed by up to 719 days -- or not at all
Award letters require recipients to file interim and final reports so NCP can confirm the money was spent as intended. tested a sample of 10 fiscal year 2021 projects requiring 22 such reports as of March 27, 2025. Seven were never submitted. Thirteen arrived late -- interim reports 25 to 719 days overdue, final reports 3 to 547 days overdue. Only two came in on schedule. NCP had no system to remind units of an approaching deadline or to follow up once one passed, which said leaves the program unable to confirm funds were used as intended or to redirect money that went unspent.
View data as table
| Never submitted | 7 | Required report never received as of March 27, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Submitted late | 13 | Interim reports 25-719 days late; final reports 3-547 days late |
| Submitted on time | 2 | The only two reports that met their deadline |
A restricted fund paid a salary its own rules forbid
The clearest breach sat inside the Pan-Smithsonian Cryo Initiative (PSCI), a $613,226 fiscal year 2021 CCI award to preserve the Smithsonian's frozen biological collections. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) hired its Cryo-Collection Manager as a temporary employee without the prior approval Smithsonian Directive 712 required. Then, on April 11, 2022, STRI converted that employee to indefinite status -- the equivalent of permanent -- and kept paying the salary and benefits with CCI funds. As OIG's audit quotes⧉, SD-712 states, in the Smithsonian's own emphasis, that "no permanent employees should be supported by these sources under any circumstances." STRI's legal counsel later said the conversion was required to comply with Panamanian law, and told it would need to find a different funding source or seek an exception to keep paying the position with CCI money.
One job, four term appointments, nearly 13 years
A second PSCI position tells a similar story. Federal term appointments are capped at four years precisely because they're meant for work that isn't permanent. NZCBI hired its PSCI Program Manager under a term appointment in September 2014, then rehired the same person to the same position under three additional competed term appointments -- almost every one funded by CCI dollars -- running through April 2027. Asked to weigh in, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management told that selecting the same employee under consecutive term appointments for the same position and office "effectually circumvents" the requirement to formally request an extension beyond the four-year limit. The Smithsonian's own Office of Human Resources disagreed, arguing each appointment followed a proper competitive process. closed its recommendation on this point only after OHR produced a new standard operating procedure requiring units to review a term position six months before it expires.
Not every dollar questioned stuck. NMNH's award for five replacement cryogenic freezers covered $80,000; the museum bought six for $77,444 and returned $2,556 unused, but initially questioned the $11,995 attributable to the unapproved sixth unit. In its written response, NCP determined the purchase would have been approved had NMNH asked first, and closed that recommendation without requiring repayment. NCP separately decided the STRI Cryo-Collection Manager's salary can keep drawing on CCI funds as an "interim measure" through the end of fiscal year 2026 -- meaning the underlying rule violation continues even as 's related recommendation to allow the cost stays closed.
- NCP ran a $5.2 million-a-year non-competitive fund with no written award procedures and no list of its own awards -- and its director approved $345,800 of fiscal year 2021 money for NCP's own operations with no higher-level sign-off, a segregation-of-duties failure under federal internal-control standards.
- Of 22 required spending reports tested, 7 were never filed and 13 arrived late -- one final report 547 days overdue -- with only 2 submitted on time, and no NCP process to chase down the rest.
- A Smithsonian directive says CCI funds must never pay a permanent employee's salary; STRI paid one anyway, converting its Cryo-Collection Manager to indefinite status in April 2022 and continuing CCI-funded pay -- a violation NCP has chosen to let run through fiscal year 2026 rather than resolve immediately.
- NZCBI kept one person in the same federal term position across four consecutive appointments spanning almost 13 years, which says circumvents the four-year cap the appointment type exists to enforce.
- Management concurred with all nine recommendations, but five remain open, including the core fix -- higher-level approval and a real award-tracking list for the fund itself.
's review covered a non-statistical, judgmentally selected sample of 11 fiscal year 2021 CCPF/CCI projects worth $2,738,309 -- 5 of 19 competitive CCPF awards and 6 of 42 non-competitive CCI awards -- so its findings describe conditions in that sample rather than confirmed conditions across every award the fund has made since 2006. Smithsonian management agreed with all nine recommendations. As of the report date, considered recommendations 1 through 4 (formal award and monitoring procedures, a report-tracking system, PSCI report review, and award-letter language on deviating from award terms) plus recommendation 7 (ending CCI-funded pay for the STRI Cryo-Collection Manager) still open; it closed recommendations 5, 6, 8, and 9 after reviewing management's follow-up analysis and a new -informed appointment-review procedure. This piece does not allege criminal conduct -- 's findings are about missing internal controls, not a determination of fraud, and all officials and units involved are described by role or unit, not by name.
Sources(2) ▾
- Smithsonian Institution Office of the Inspector General, Opportunities to Improve Oversight of the Use of the Collections Care and Preservation Fund (OIG-A-26-02) (2026-02-12) — A performance audit transmitted February 12, 2026 by the Smithsonian Institution's Office of the Inspector General, examining whether the National Collections Program (NCP) had effective controls over awarding and monitoring the Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF) and its non-competitive companion, the Collections Care Initiative (CCI). reviewed a non-statistical sample of 11 fiscal year 2021 CCPF/CCI projects, interviewed NCP and budget officials, and visited Smithsonian sites. The audit made nine recommendations; management concurred with all nine. Hosted on oversight.gov, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency's official federal- portal. oversight.gov · original document
- Smithsonian Institution Office of the Inspector General, OIG Hotline (2026-07-20) — The Smithsonian 's public hotline page, re-fetched to source the call-to-action contact details in this piece: phone, email, and mailing address for reporting fraud, waste, and abuse in Smithsonian programs and operations -- the same office that produced the audit this article covers. The email and mailing address match the back-cover hotline information printed in the audit PDF itself; the phone number is sourced from this hotline page only. oig.si.edu · original document
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A Smithsonian Institution Office of the Inspector General audit⧉ published February 12, 2026 found the Smithsonian's National Collections Program (NCP) had no written procedures for awarding or monitoring the Collections Care Initiative (CCI) -- the non-competitive half of the Smithsonian's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF), which has received $109 million since it was created in 2006. Without those procedures, wrote, NCP "has reduced assurance that units are using the nearly $5.2 million in CCI funds for authorized purposes only and exposes these funds to the risk of fraud."