The Trump administration positioned roughly 75% of full-time AmeriCorps workers on administrative go away on Wednesday because the administration seems to rebuild the Clinton-era volunteer company from scratch, Fox Information Digital discovered.
A complete of 535 full-time AmeriCorps workers out of the company’s 700 workers have been positioned on go away, an administration official confirmed to Fox Information Digital Thursday.
Volunteers with AmeriCorps’ Nationwide Civilian Neighborhood Corps, a program that focuses particularly on volunteer alternatives for youth between the ages of 18–26, have been preemptively pulled out of the sphere forward of the Trump administration putting the company’s full-time staffers on go away Wednesday, Fox Digital discovered. Roughly $250 million in AmeriCorps contracts have additionally been canceled.
AmeriCorps is predicted to stay in existence, in keeping with the admin official, however the operations will primarily restart from scratch.
IRS CUTTING ITS WORKFORCE BY 25%, ELIMINATING AGENCY’S CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE
Then-President Invoice Clinton with AmeriCorps youth throughout an occasion on the College of Maryland. (Getty Photos)
Former President Invoice Clinton created the AmeriCorps Nationwide Service Program in 1993, throughout his first yr in workplace, as a volunteer arm of the federal government to assist support communities nationwide.
The company has obtained roughly $1 billion in taxpayer funds yearly, the Home Greater Training and Workforce Improvement Subcommittee beforehand discovered, however had failed eight consecutive audits throughout the previous decade.
“Sadly, AmeriCorps has a protracted historical past of abusing taxpayer {dollars},” chair of the Home subcommittee, Republican Utah Rep. Burgess Owens, mentioned in a press release in December 2024.
“AmeriCorps is entrusted with over $1 billion of taxpayer funds yearly, with the results of failure of eight consecutive audits,” he continued. “In 2023, the AmeriCorps Inspector Basic issued a ‘Administration Challenges’ report detailing vital challenges AmeriCorps faces. This consists of being unable to detect fraud. We’ve no actual concept when AmeriCorps will be capable to have a clear audit once more. In actual fact, this yr’s audit consists of 78 suggestions nonetheless open, even after AmeriCorps mentioned it addressed 20 final yr.”
Then-President Joe Biden and first woman Jill Biden pose with members of AmeriCorps on arrival at Joint Base Charleston in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Jan. 19, 2025. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP through Getty Photos)
Fox Information Digital examined AmeriCorp’s price range lately and located its 2023 fiscal yr price range stood at $1,312,806, which included $99,686,000 in bills and salaries, whereas fiscal yr 2024 saw a budget of $1,262,806, which included the identical determine for bills and salaries. The Biden administration proposed a price range of $1,342,093,000 for fiscal yr 2025.
The company’s annual management report for fiscal yr 2024 confirmed that it had $3.7 billion in property, together with over $1.5 billion in investments.
Range, fairness and inclusion and local weather change initiatives have been a prime precedence for the volunteer-focused company, with the 2024 annual administration report figuring out “advancing racial and financial fairness” as considered one of its prime priorities, Fox Digital discovered.
President Donald Trump gestures to the group at a marketing campaign occasion on July 1, 2023 in Pickens, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Photos)
“AmeriCorps has a decades-long dedication to advancing racial and financial fairness by means of nationwide service and volunteering,” the report acknowledged. “These efforts are designed to develop pathways to alternative for all Individuals. Racial and financial fairness will likely be central to AmeriCorps’ planning and implementation of all priorities, guaranteeing AmeriCorps members and volunteers mirror the variety of the American individuals and the communities by which they serve.”
Owens mentioned in 2024 that whereas a number of the company’s applications are “well-intentioned,” taxpayers mustn’t proceed funding the workplace and referred to as for it to land on the Division of Authorities Effectivity’s chopping block.
“It is senseless to develop this company or give it extra money when it constantly fails to fulfill fundamental accountability requirements,” he mentioned. “Each time its representatives come earlier than this Committee, AmeriCorps assures us that they’ll implement reforms, and yr after yr nothing modifications. We will inform AmeriCorps to modernize and reform till we’re blue within the face, however nothing will change until we acknowledge the system is constructed on a flawed concept. It’s time to admit that this can be a failed program that wants a whole overhaul or elimination. It ought to be on DOGE’s chopping block.”
