(Tribune News Service) — The University of Montana laid off 47 employees after money for a program previously funded by the Department of Defense wasn’t included in Congress’ last bill to fund the government.

Director Liz Barrs of the Defense Critical Language & Culture Program, which lost an expected $6.5 million for a program to train special forces in languages and regional histories, said in an interview Tuesday that instructors prepare and support U.S. military personnel to deploy worldwide to counter threats and work with allies.

“It’s a direct impact on military readiness and U.S. national security,” she said.

UM President Seth Bodnar and Montana’s Congressional delegation are aligned on trying to restore funding to the program for fiscal year 2026, Barrs said.

These job losses follow a string of cuts to federal employees in the first few months of President Donald Trump’s administration. Many cuts have been attributed to the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, but the latest UM cuts are attributed to funding not being allocated in the continuing resolution passed by Congress in March.

Montana’s Republican Congressional delegation all voted to support the resolution, which passed with bipartisan support.

Another estimated 30 employees at the university were moved to different jobs, typically adjacent to the work they were doing before, in order to keep them employed at UM. That’s according to university spokesperson Dave Kuntz.

Bodnar said in a statement cuts to federal funding have an “outsized impact” on Montana through job loss, which will negatively impact progress from public health to military readiness.

He said the university is working with the state’s congressional delegation to protect funding the school has already been awarded. He added the university is also “scenario planning for reductions in future federal funding that will no doubt be felt across Montana.”

Forty of the 47 terminated employees were hired under a “Letter of Appointment,” meaning they are contingent on an available funding source like a federal grant.

“Therefore, if the funding runs out, the employment is terminated,” Kuntz explained.

Two employees were temporary hires brought on for a specific short-term role, not meant to last longer than one year, Kuntz said. Another five employees were “classified staff,” meaning traditional employees who received a pending layoff notice because of the funding reduction.

The Defense Critical Language and Culture Program at the Mansfield Center is the only program at UM impacted by the job cuts. A total of 10 universities run similar programs and all lost the same amount in funding.

Barrs said the grant award last year was $6.5 million, which is how much the program was hoping to be awarded for future funding. The program started in 2008 and has received those funds since 2011, Barrs said, and she attributes the loss to the “mechanics of having to deal with a continuing resolution rather than a traditional defense spending bill.”

Continuing resolutions are temporary extensions of government funding typically passed to avoid a government shutdown.

Missoula City Council member Kristen Jordan mentioned the cuts in her remarks at the end of Monday night’s meeting when speaking about the state of the community event earlier in the day.

She said the vast majority of questions directed at speakers, which included University of Montana President Seth Bodnar, were about the impact of federal funding cuts in Missoula, Mont.

One of said cuts, she said, was to 75 employees at UM — a figure Kuntz said lumps the 47 terminations and the estimated 30 or so employees moved around together.

Employees were both based in Missoula, Mont., and at different military bases including Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Campbell in Kentucky and Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington.

The program offers instruction in at least ten different languages including Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Arabic, French and Spanish.

Classes are more intensive than traditional language courses — six hours a day, five days a week — and include instruction on regional history and geopolitical threats.

Students span the ranks, from privates to generals, and from different branches including the Marines, the Navy and the Air Force. She said there are about 100 students total in the department’s courses right now and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command will have to find other instructors in short order.

“Our instructors are really very experienced instructors. They’re native speakers. They have years and years of experience, plus most of them have pretty advanced degrees in how to teach language,” she said. “It really is a direct impact on those students in current classes where they’re going to have to switch.”

The Department continues to offer other programming including the Russian language program StarTalk and Barrs remains hopeful the critical language program will continue if funding is reinstated.

But she acknowledges it may make it difficult to bring teachers back.

“It’s always a challenge, right? Because they can go find other jobs,” she said. “This program, fortunately, has a great track record of finding and keeping really, really good faculty, and so I’m certain we’ll be able to do that in the future.”

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