Unspent and undelivered service contracts are not a rumor. Public auditors and researchers keep documenting them. These are the findings, with links to the sources, and what each pattern looks like inside a single contract while there is still time to act.
Each figure was checked against its source on November 1, 2026. None of these organizations used ContractPlan, and we don’t claim it would have changed their results. The point is the pattern: problems found at the end that were visible in the middle.
The findings
HUD Office of Inspector General · 2022
$257 million
Homelessness grants returned unspent
Between 2017 and 2020, HUD recaptured nearly $257 million from Continuum of Care grantees that had not fully spent their grants, in a program that makes about $2 billion available a year. The Inspector General estimated that consistent reviews of spending could prevent up to $47 million a year from going unspent.
What the auditors pointed to: HUD had no written procedures for field offices to review grantees’ spending during the grant, so problems were found after grants expired.
Under pace7 months in, 58% of the year gone and 39% billed.
Each grant shows its pace every month, from the invoices already being sent.
The projection says how much would be left at the end at the current rate, months before it expires.
A read-only page lets the funder see the same numbers, so a spending problem is a conversation in month 4, not a recapture letter.
An illustration with made-up figures, not data from the audit.
San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst · 2020
13%
Service contracts underspent, every year since the department began
A performance audit of San Francisco’s homelessness department found that its contracts with service providers had underspent their annual budgets every year since the department was created, and projected that service contracts would underspend by nearly 13 percent in fiscal 2019–20. Unspent annual City grant funds were about 16 to 17 percent of each year’s revised budget from 2016–17 to 2018–19.
What the auditors pointed to: The audit found provider contracts weren’t monitored closely enough and the reasons for underspending (program start-up delays, provider short staffing) weren’t documented.
Under paceStarted 3 months late; projected to finish 22% under.
The census planner counts the start-up delay and the approval wait, and shows the caseload it now takes to spend the contract.
Notes and flags on each contract keep the reason for a shortfall written down where the funder can see it.
Across a portfolio, every contract’s pace sits on one page, so a pattern is visible before year end.
An illustration with made-up figures, not data from the audit.
City of Austin Auditor · 2026 (draft)
44%
Performance targets missed in social-services contracts
Reviewing 25 nonprofit family and social-services contracts worth about $30 million, the auditor found 19 (76 percent) missed at least one performance expectation, and 67 of 151 output and outcome expectations (44 percent) were not met. For more than half of those, what was delivered was more than 40 percent below what was expected.
What the auditors pointed to: The City mostly paid for costs regardless of results and did not consistently evaluate performance at the end of each contract.
Meals delivered: 61% of the units contracted so far.
Units delivered are recorded against each service line’s contracted units as invoices or counts come in.
A shortfall shows up the month it starts, not at the end-of-contract review.
Provider and funder look at the same service counts, so the question is how to close the gap, not whose numbers are right.
An illustration with made-up figures, not data from the audit.
American Economic Review · 2017 (peer-reviewed)
4.9×
The year-end rush, and what it costs
Jeffrey Liebman and Neale Mahoney found that federal procurement spending in the last week of the fiscal year is 4.9 times the weekly average for the rest of the year, and that year-end technology projects received substantially lower quality ratings. Organizations hold back early in the year and then rush to spend before the money expires.
What the researchers found: Budgets that expire at year end reward waiting, then spending fast.
Under paceWaiting 3 months raises the extra clients needed from 9 to 15.
The census chart prices the cost of waiting: closing a gap later takes more clients for fewer months.
It shows the year-end overhang, the clients a late surge leaves that next year’s contract may not cover.
Starting referrals early is how a service contract avoids its own year-end rush.
An illustration with made-up figures, not data from the audit.
U.S. Government Accountability Office · 2012, 2016
$994 million
Money left in grants that had already ended
GAO found more than $794 million still undisbursed in expired grant accounts at the end of fiscal 2011, and about $994 million across 8,832 expired accounts at the end of fiscal 2015. Health and Human Services accounts, the source of most aging and human-services funding, held about $651 million of it, or 66 percent.
What the auditors pointed to: Balances weren’t tracked or reported consistently, so money sat in grants after their end dates.
Contract ends in 6 weeks: closeout report due, $41,200 not yet billed.
Each contract’s end date, closeout and reporting deadlines sit on one list, with reminders.
Year-end closeout shows what was billed, paid and left, and starts the next year from it.
An illustration with made-up figures, not data from the audit.
Meanwhile, people wait
The same years these dollars went unspent, services were rationed.
In a 2024 survey of 628 Meals on Wheels providers, 33 percent had a waiting list, with about 36,000 older adults waiting an average of about 115 days (Meals on Wheels America).
GAO estimated that in 2021 about 9 percent of low-income older adults received home-delivered or congregate meals, while food insecurity among older Americans was about 18 percent (GAO-24-107513).
GAO also found there are no standard definitions or measures of need and unmet need for these services (GAO-11-237).
No one should wait for service on a contract that is going unspent.
The number nobody has
There is no national figure for how much of the value of human-services contracts is actually delivered. Every finding above comes from one program or one city, discovered after the fact. The reason is the same in each: spending and service are reviewed at closeout, not while the contract is running.
ContractPlan keeps that number for every contract, every month, from the invoices and counts a provider already produces, and lets the provider share it with the funder.
What it means for you
Nonprofits and providers: see where each contract will land while there is time to change it, and know the caseload it takes to spend it. Guides explain the method.
Cities, counties and area agencies: a read-only view of each provider’s pace and service counts, without another report to collect. Write to us about your provider network, and see For purchasing and compliance.
ContractPlan does this for every contract you hold.
It reads your contracts and invoices and shows where each one will land, the census it takes to spend it, and every report due. 30-day free trial, no card required.