UM’s Mansfield Center Expects to Lose Millions Due to DOGE Cuts

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - Once a month, the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana hosts a special program featuring guests from the center discussing various programs at the center.

Tuesday was a different story, as Mansfield Center Executive Director Deena Mansour and Katie Vaughan , Director of Civic Engagement appeared ostensibly to discuss one of the special programs sponsored by the center, however, the conversation actually centered around the recent budget cuts imposed by the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) program.

Mansfield Center Director Discusses DOGE Budget Cuts

Mansour explained.

“Things have directly impacted us at the Mansfield Center, including layoffs, including loss of millions of dollars in funding,” began Mansour. “The reason for that, we believe, is not really a rational assessment of what our programs achieve. So we have just been informed that one program was immediately terminated, and that was our program to bridge divides, to support civic education, and civic engagement, to bolster an understanding of our nation's military and the role of Montanans in that sector of our governments.”

Mansour said the Center had an existing contract with the federal government that she says has been violated.

Mansour Said the Cuts May Violate an Existing Government Contract

“With the full support of our congressional delegation, we had competitively been awarded a grant of what remains to be about $6 million to bridge divides, and this allowed us to serve a number of programs, and I'll have Katie as the director of those programs, talk about those in more detail, but those were one of the first programs cut in the doge review of the Pentagon.”

Mansour is hopeful that the $6 million grant will soon be restored.

“We believe that this was possibly an error,” she said. “If our congressional delegation had been more involved at that stage, or if people who had been reviewing the programs at that stage had looked at what we've actually achieved, those that $6 million would not have been cut.”

Mansour Is Hopeful that a $6 Million Project May be Restored

Mansour said her office always welcomes any legitimate scrutiny of its funding.

“We are completely supportive of a programmatic review,” she said. “We do believe our programs are 100 percent aligned with this administration as they should be. This administration, of course, wants to fund and run the programs it wants to, but this was, as many people have said, taking a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel to programs.”

Click here to listen to the entire conversation about the UM Mansfield Center.