For the second year in a row — and again on the last day of the session — Utah lawmakers slashed funding to a group dedicated to empowering women and girls.

This year’s target was a $650,000 cut to the Utah Women and Leadership Project, a Utah State University-based research group focused on the health, safety and economic opportunities of women and girls in Utah. The group’s ongoing funding was reallocated to the university’s Utah Forest Restoration Institute after the Legislature passed HB376, a bill that expanded the institute’s staffing and research efforts.

The reallocation, which continues a recent trend of stripping funding from historically marginalized groups, came in a budget year lawmakers have described as a “socks and underwear” year and after legislators warned state agencies to look for possible budget cuts. Despite the tight budget, however, lawmakers prioritized an income tax cut for the sixth year in a row.

The news of the reallocation stunned UWLP staff, founding director Susan Madsen said in an interview, and represents an existential threat to their work.

“It’s been an absolute shock,” Madsen said Monday. “This will eliminate most of my staff and our efforts.”

The cut to the project was tucked into the Legislature’s annual budget bill, a massive, 4,762-line piece of legislation to codify the state’s budget and fund bills passed throughout the session.

Both the funding bill and HB376 were passed nearly unanimously.

“There was no debate, nothing,” Madsen said. “And that’s scary to me that with democracy, there’s a way for people to strategically, on the last day, do something that would cause damage to thousands, tens of thousands of people in the state.”

Madsen founded UWLP 17 years ago while working at Utah Valley University. Six years ago, she moved to teach at Utah State University, and the project moved north with her to Logan. The research organization is focused on women and girls in Utah and represents one of the only organizations in the state dedicated solely to studying the barriers women and girls face.

The taxpayer money the project received, Madsen said, funded four of her five full-time staffers. Her position, along with that of one other staff member, is funded by Utah State University.

“Without any additional funding,” Madsen said, “[we] can’t keep at the full extent what we’re doing, and one professor can only do a certain amount.”

The project’s research, she added, has been a vital resource to nonprofits and businesses across the state, as well as lawmakers and state agencies. More than a dozen state lawmakers, she said, attended the group’s summit last summer, where they launched project A Bolder Way Forward, which seeks to bring together people across the state interested in bettering the experience of Utah women, girls and their families.

Madsen said she was alerted to the funding reallocation by USU staff on Friday, and that the university itself was not aware it was coming. She said leadership at the university told her they hope to find ways to bridge the funding gap and keep the project going.

A spokesperson for Utah State University confirmed that commitment in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune.

“The Utah Women & Leadership Project does important research. When our leaders saw that the funding was being pulled from the UWLP on Friday, they reached out to Dr. Madsen to schedule a meeting for this week to talk about how the university will cover the shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1, as well as discuss a long-term approach,” USU spokesperson Amanda DeRito said. “This meeting is already on the books for Wednesday this week.”

DeRito added that the Utah Forest Restoration Institute will “address critical issues in our state and we’re excited that our experts will lead this effort.”

“Our goal is certainly not for two important programs to compete with each other,” she said.

A spokesperson for Utah House of Representatives leaders said Monday that they did not have the specific context for the particular allocation of the UWLP funds, but “the Legislature reduced approximately 2.4% of ongoing state funds this session and reallocated to priorities and programs that better meet the state’s current needs.”

“These decisions are never easy,” the spokesperson added, “but our responsibility is to be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars and ensure funding is directed where it will have the greatest impact for Utahns.”

Last year, on the final day of the legislative session, lawmakers repealed the Women in the Economy Commission, a group — which included some of the state’s top women elected officials — dedicated to boosting women’s equality. When lawmakers repealed the commission, one representative specifically said that the work of the group would continue through other organizations, including the Utah Women and Leadership Project.

And in 2024, lawmakers passed a sweeping anti-diversity, equity and inclusion bill that, among other things, shuttered resource centers for women at Utah’s universities. The impact of the bill was a research focus for UWLP.

Now, Madsen fears there will be a void.

“We can all just do better and make Utah a place that people don’t just whisper and say, ‘Oh, don’t go to Utah because they’re not good to women,’” she said. “We’re trying to shift that. But this is a step backwards.”