Presumably a lot of the funds in the terminated grants were for running programs that had other direct costs beyond pure headcount…

That’s the thing that isn’t being reported well, IMHO: federal grants aren’t just gifts that the government gives universities, they are contracts for universities to perform services (conducting very specific research programs with well-specified deliverables, running very specific educational activities for carefully defined populations of learners, etc.).

Grants/contracts aren't necessarily just for one year and often the numbers are about obligations and not outlays.

I don't know which specific grants were cut but here's a random example[1] of one (which is probably(?) not involved). In this example it's over multiple decades with ~$253 obligated but (assuming site accuracy) only $53 million has been outlayed.

It would be nice if media reporting included detailed information though.

[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_UM1AI068632_7529

Salaries are rarely the biggest expense in lab science and it's easy for a bench scientist to spend more on reagents in a day then they will make. Then there is all the very pricy equipment that is necessary, the cost of disposal of waste, the fume hoods and other extremely expensive real estate....

The overhead on a software is basically zero dollars but it's very different for science.

Indirect costs and non-payroll costs (equipment, travel, etc)