Whistleblowers say Kennedy Center leaders sat on funded repairs, then cited the damage to justify closing it

Former employees of the Kennedy Center have told a Senate committee that the arts center's leadership sat on more than $9 million in already-approved repair money for over a year, then cited the resulting structural damage this month to justify closing the building — an allegation that has drawn a two-week deadline from a top Senate Democrat and adds a new front to an already tangled legal fight over the center's future.

The whistleblowers, represented by attorney David Seide of the Government Accountability Project, sent their account to the Democratic staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Sept. 24, according to the letter itself. They allege that Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Matt Floca halted a funded roof-remediation plan in April even though the money had been requested and received more than a year earlier. "More than one year ago, Mr. Floca had requested and received the needed funds to remediate the New Problems he references," Seide wrote, as reported by PBS NewsHour.

The numbers

Congress had appropriated $9.3 million specifically for roof and renovation work that the whistleblowers say leadership shelved. The letter further alleges that $1.4 million originally set aside for waterproofing was instead redirected to help fund a separate $4.4 million project repainting the center's exterior columns white, a change requested by President Trump. That repainting job, the whistleblowers say, used a cheaper primer than specified; rust is now showing through, and the columns are expected to need repainting again at an estimated cost of $1.8 million. The building closed to the public this month after inspectors found corrosion on the underside of its distinctive overhanging roof and, on Sept. 4, a partial ceiling-plaster collapse in the Grand Foyer. Floca's own court filing described "acute risks to public safety" and an "inability to provide safe egress," and extended the closure through at least Sept. 30 with weekly reevaluation, according to ABC News' report on the extended shutdown.

How the center got here

The dispute over the roof repairs is the latest chapter in a fight that began in August, when the Kennedy Center's board voted to close the building for two years for renovation and to attach Trump's name to part of the campus, rebranding it "Donald J. Trump Plaza." Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio board member by statute, sued to block both moves, and U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper has repeatedly sided with her: a May order barred the two-year closure and renovation plan, and a mid-September ruling reversed the renaming, ordering the center to remove signage, correct its website and withdraw related trademark applications within 14 days, according to Rep. Beatty's statement on the ruling. The Justice Department has since asked Cooper to dissolve his earlier order, and the case remains open. Separately, a conservative watchdog group has filed a judicial-misconduct complaint against Cooper, arguing he should have recused himself because his wife has represented clients critical of the administration.

Who is affected

The closure, whatever its ultimate cause, has already disrupted performances, ticket holders and the center's unionized staff, and it sits on top of a financial picture the committee says is deteriorating: the center is now projected to miss its 2026 revenue target by nearly $100 million amid a fundraising slump that followed the addition of Trump's name to the building, according to the committee's earlier August letter demanding financial records. Congress, which appropriated $257 million for the center in 2025, has its own stake in the outcome as the body that funded the repairs the whistleblowers say went unused, and any further delay affects performers and touring productions that had booked dates before the closure.

"The Kennedy Center has known for years that the roof overhang leaked. What we did not know until this summer was how far the damage had spread inside it," Floca said, adding that the April change was "a change in the approach to procuring and delivering the work, not a determination that the work was unnecessary," because contractor bids had come in at roughly triple the expected cost.

Reaction

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the EPW Committee, wrote to Floca accusing leadership of having "hoarded" congressionally appropriated repair funds "while blaming previous leadership for the state of repairs." He gave the center until Oct. 8 to respond in writing, and said the new documents "seem to reveal deeper financial mismanagement" beyond the cronyism and spending concerns his earlier inquiry had already raised, according to reporting from the Associated Press. Floca's rebuttal, that the delay reflected a procurement decision rather than neglect, has not yet been tested against the whistleblowers' underlying documents, which the committee has not made public in full.

What happens next

The Kennedy Center faces an Oct. 8 deadline to respond to Whitehouse's committee, a response that will likely shape whether the dispute escalates into a subpoena fight or a public hearing. The underlying court case over the renaming and closure plan continues before Judge Cooper, whose current order requires 30 days' notice before any major physical changes to the building — a requirement that, combined with the roof-damage allegations, means the center's temporary closure and its long-term renovation plans are now being litigated and investigated on parallel tracks. Neither the White House nor the Kennedy Center's board has said how the whistleblower allegations will affect the timeline for reopening.

The center has occupied an outsized place in Washington's cultural life since Congress designated it the national living memorial to President Kennedy, a status the center's history traces to its 1971 opening. That history is part of what makes the current fight — over a name, a two-year closure and now the handling of federal repair money — more than a routine building-maintenance dispute; it is playing out over an institution whose board composition and public funding make it answerable to Congress in ways an ordinary performing-arts venue is not.