The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is warning Congress it may need more staff to manage a steep increase in federal whistleblower complaints and other cases.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reports receiving 6,251 new cases in fiscal 2024, a new record for the independent agency. By the end of 2024, OSC’s active inventory had increased by more than 400 cases.

“This caseload increase, while a positive for federal employees’ awareness of OSC, threatens to increase the number of active cases that OSC carries over to the following fiscal year,” Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger writes in the special counsel’s latest annual report to Congress.

“Should caseloads continue to increase, which we anticipate, OSC will require additional resources in future years,” Dellinger adds.

OSC is an independent agency charged with protecting federal employee rights and safeguarding the merit system. It investigates allegations of prohibited personnel practices, including whistleblower retaliation. The office also upholds the Hatch Act’s prohibition on partisan political activities. And it protects returning service members and reservists from employment retaliation.

The special counsel received 1,757 disclosures from federal whistleblowers in fiscal 2024. That represents a 57% increase over the previous five-year average. Despite the increase in whistleblower filings, OSC reports meeting the requirement to refer matters for investigation within 45 days for 99% of the cases.

“Substantiated disclosures can often result in direct financial returns to the government,” OSC writes in the annual report. “However, a fuller measure of OSC’s financial contribution is preventive; by providing a safe channel for whistleblower disclosures, and acting swiftly to ensure the agency takes action.”

While the number of cases OSC received in 2024 marked a new record, the total was more in line with pre-pandemic caseloads. During the height of the pandemic – when many feds were working remotely – OSC cases plummeted.

But under Dellinger, who was confirmed as special counsel in 2023, boosting awareness of OSC’s work to support federal employees has also been a priority.

Stephen Kohn, an attorney and founder of the National Whistleblower Center, said the record number of cases shows those efforts are paying off.

“If employees know their friends who went to the special counsel are getting no relief and the system is broken, they’re not going to blow the whistle,” Kohn said. “But by this guy going forward and publicizing his efforts and essentially creating an open door policy and communicating to the whistleblower community that he’s serious about his job, you’re going to come forward.

In fiscal 2024, OSC reports achieving 450 “favorable outcomes” for feds who were subject to retaliation and other prohibited personnel practices. That’s also a new record for the special counsel. The annual report points to multiple specific cases where OSC’s intervention forced agencies to act on allegations of mismanagement and wrongdoing.

OSC is also boosting awareness of National Whistleblower Appreciation Day among feds. Agencies must now inform their workers about the annual holiday to be certified under OSC’s Section 2302c program.

And Dellinger wants to take public awareness of OSC’s efforts even further. Under a new transparency proposal, the special counsel’s office has started posting public summaries of some ongoing whistleblower cases, such as when an agency fails to respond to an OSC referral within the 60-day statutory deadline.

“I’ve got tremendous respect for the inspectors general who are often conducting these reviews,” Dellinger told the Federal Drive with Tom Temin last August. “But I want everyone to focus on what Congress wants, which is a quick answer to a serious allegation. And so we are looking at extension requests differently these days. And I want to have a number of options for the public and for the whistleblower to know that something is being taken seriously and looked into quickly.”

Potential staffing challenges

Even as it raises awareness around its work, the special counsel also acknowledged looming staffing constraints in his annual report.

“Given the case successes that OSC has seen in recent years, coupled with the record-high caseload levels, OSC’s staffing levels are a growing concern for the agency,” the report states.

If cases continue rising, OSC warns that its staff will be stretched too thin, leading to case processing delays. The agency says it needs more employees to manage the growth in whistleblower disclosures, prohibited personnel practices, Hatch Act violations, and other cases.

“Due to the complex nature of many of OSC’s cases, extremely high caseloads are untenable for the long-term success of the agency and result in frustration for whistleblowers and other stakeholders alike,” OSC’s report continues. “This gap between resources and demand, which has resulted in the current backlog . . . must be closed further for OSC to successfully fulfill its mission.”

The outlook for the special counsel over the next year unclear. Congress has yet to finalize a fiscal 2025 spending agreement. But the House-passed version of the 2025 general government spending bill would include no increase in funding for OSC to hire additional staff.

“OSC has traditionally been underfunded, and they need to be fully supported in a bipartisan way,” Kohn said.

Meanwhile, advocates for whistleblowers will be closely watching the incoming Trump administration’s interactions with OSC. President-elect Donald Trump in 2020 fired the intelligence community’s inspector general for advancing a whistleblower complaint at the center of his first impeachment inquiry.

“[OSC] was designed to be independent and to be able to take action to protect whistleblowers, even if it’s highly embarrassing to a sitting president, and that needs to be guarded and protected aggressively, period,” Kohn said. “The message should be sent to all the cabinet officials and to the president and to the White House, this is their job. Hands off.”

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