The DOGE Impact Tracker

Due to DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps, Kansas will lose over $4.5 million in funding and 375 staff members employed by organizations such as the Kansas State Department of Education in Topeka and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Manhattan and Lawrence, according to the United Way of Kaw Valley.

Jessica Lehnherr, president and CEO of the United Way of Kaw Valley, tells KSNT News that she is wondering how they’ll be able to support numerous services without a new round of funding:

“So many rely on our nonprofit sector to help provide for them in times of need. And not only that, also helping with education and in our educational system. And if we want families to be able to continue to work, we need to help support them while they are working by having affordable childcare.” 

To lay out the budget cuts and program cancellations impacting everything from disaster relief and consumer fraud to school meals in Kentucky, the state’s Center for Economic Policy launched its own tracker this week.

The center’s executive director Jason Bailey tells Spectrum News 1:

“Issues ranging from disaster relief to school meals to education programs, the AmeriCorps program, for example, has been cut 41% of the grant funding for AmeriCorps that provides jobs for young people in about 700 sites in Kentucky. They provide tutoring and education services, community service programs, arts programs, public health programs, that’s been cut nearly in half,” said Bailey.

He said some cuts aren’t needed.

“I think you know it’s one thing to talk about just cutting so-called waste. It’s another thing when cuts actually happen and you see that it’s not things that are wasteful. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for example, has been gutted by DOGE. There were 22,000 complaints for Kentuckians last year on predatory financial issues, including just having an incorrect credit score, having a debt collector collect on debt that a person didn’t even owe, or fees that were not fully disclosed. You know those things matter,” said Bailey.

DOGE cuts to AmeriCorps, a federal agency for national service and volunteerism, is leading to job cuts at nonprofits in the Cincinnati area, reports WCPO-Channel 9:

WCPO, through council member Meeka Owens, learned organizations like Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses, Lighthouse Youth Services, Catholic Charities and more have lost corps members to cuts.

“These nonprofit organizations that are doing this work on the frontlines that cities, quite frankly, don’t have the capacity to do,” Owens said.

Owens told us the city had one employee working in historical designations who was let go, while the United Way of Greater Cincinnati had 11.

One organization that WCPO spoke to directly is The Mill Creek Alliance, a nonprofit that works to restore and maintain a stream of water that flows through the heart of Cincinnati.