Kennedy Center officials were long aware of serious structural problems they identified as new problems after the sudden decision to close the performing arts center this month, a group of former employees claims in a letter to Congress.
The center’s executive director and chief operating officer, Matt Floca, did not treat roof issues as a priority and in April suspended a funded plan to address them, according to the letter Thursday signed by David Seide, an attorney representing the anonymous whistleblowers.
Floca denied their allegations, saying that a recent investigation into the leak revealed new dangers in the building.
In a September court declaration, Floca noted that there were “serious threats to public safety” when the aging building temporarily closed its doors after an investigation into a crumbling roof terrace canopy and a partial roof collapse. The former employees, however, claim that Floca, who joined the Kennedy Center as vice president of resources in 2024, was previously known on these “serious” issues.
“More than a year ago, Mr. Floca had asked for and received money to fix the new problems he mentions,” Seide wrote, citing President Donald Trump’s cut-and-spend bill he signed in the summer of 2025. “But six months ago – with the money in hand – he stopped the healing process from moving forward.” In the legislation, Congress designated $257 million for the Kennedy Center.
The letter, first reported by The New York Times, is the latest in a series of tensions over an iconic building along the Potomac River that has become a focus of the Republican president in his remaking of the nation’s capital in his second term. Trump has placed his own leadership on the center’s governing board and signed the building before a judge ruled the new letter was illegally added and ordered it removed.
The Trump-aligned board voted earlier this month to permanently close the center pending repairs after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper halted his plans to return Trump’s name to the building.
Cooper has told the center that he must give 30 days notice before making major physical changes to the building, including demolition, as Trump had threatened. Kennedy Center leadership must also submit a status report no later than Friday on temporary closures and emergency repairs.
When asked to respond to the whistleblowers’ claims, a Kennedy Center spokesperson sent a written statement from Floca, who said the safety of patrons, artists and staff is his priority.
“The Kennedy Center has known for years that the roof leaked,” he wrote. “What we didn’t know until this summer was how far the damage had spread inside him.”
Floca said that instead of stopping the design plans in April as the whistleblowers said, he had reassigned the work to a more complete plan because the contractor’s quote for the original plans was almost three times the expected cost.
“That was a change in the procedure for receiving and delivering the work, not proof that the work was not needed,” Floca wrote.
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote to Floca on Thursday after receiving the whistleblower letter. Whitehouse said the documents showed Kennedy Center leadership had been “hoarding” congressional funding for repairs “while blaming previous leadership for the state of repair.”
“My first investigation into misconduct at the Center focused on cronyism and corruption, with documents showing excessive spending and self-serving under President Trump’s presidency,” Whitehouse said. “The documents I am attaching today appear to reveal deeper financial mismanagement.”
A spokesman for the committee’s Republican majority did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.