States put free school meals on the menu

Millions of families who picked up the tab for breakfast and lunch served at public schools this year may see financial relief in the fall if state officials can get their legislatures to cooperate.

Before Covid-19, free school meals were usually available only to students who met income requirements for free or reduced-price meals or attended schools that qualified for certain alternative programs. After Congress let a pandemic-era waiver expire on Sept. 30 that allowed all students eat school meals for free, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington, among other states, have tried to step in where the federal government left off.

They’re banking on above-average budgets, new legislative sessions and some federal funds to make sure school dishes come at no cost to any child who wants a meal.

Minnesota has a budget surplus of nearly $18 billion, which some lawmakers and school meals advocates hope can go toward hunger initiatives.

State Rep. Sydney Jordan plans to reintroduce a universal school meals bill in the 2023 session, which starts in January, after an identical bill stalled in 2022. Jordan said the funding mechanism for the program would stay the same — maximizing support from the federal Community Eligibility Provision, which allows high-poverty schools to serve meals at no cost, and getting the rest of the money from the state’s general fund.

“We have a budget surplus and we know we can do this. No child in Minnesota should be going hungry,” Jordan, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has also made free school meals a priority for his second term.

Investing in educational services like “making sure that every child has a meal when they come through that door” should be a priority in the coming legislative session, the governor said at a December press conference on the budget surplus. Walz, a former educator, stressed that the state “need[s] to see universal meals so this food insecurity issue is taken away.”

The pandemic waiver for free school meals, which launched in March 2020, expired at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year after a Covid-19 aid package allowed the Agriculture Department to waive certain regulations for the first time. The percentage of free lunches served dropped from 99.8 percent in May 2022 to 67.5 percent in September, according to data from USDA.

Data backs the benefits of universal free school meals. Schools that provided no-cost meals for all students, through the Community Eligibility Provision, saw academic and behavioral benefits for students who didn’t meet the income qualifications for free meals, according to research from Krista Ruffini, a Georgetown University professor who has studied universal free school meals and student achievement.

“We see that expanding the school meals program to all kids, regardless of their families' income leads to improvements for kids and families,” Ruffini said. “Math test scores go up, exclusionary discipline — basically out-of-school suspensions — go down and the use of food bank services also falls.”

A budget surplus from Covid aid is helping states continue a version of the federal program in several regions.

California and Maine started permanent universal school meal programs this school year by leveraging budget surpluses.

Colorado will tax wealthier residents to generate $100.7 million to fund free meals — a program overwhelmingly approved by Republican and Democratic voters through a 2022 ballot measure.

Vermont, Nevada and Massachusetts extended no-cost meals to all students for the current school year and Pennsylvania extended universal breakfast through the 2022-23 school year.

“States are doing this because federally, we're not able to find consensus and pass legislation to make this happen,” Jessica Gould, chair of the School Nutrition Association’s public policy and legislation committee, said.

Washington state Superintendent Chris Reykdal submitted a free school meal proposal to the governor and legislature in September for consideration in the upcoming biennial budget.

The superintendent’s budget proposal cites the end of the USDA’s pandemic waivers as a reason the office is requesting that the state fund no-cost meals adding that the expiration came “at a time when families are still recovering from the financial impact of Covid-19, and the cost of food continues to rise.” Washington’s program would cost the state roughly $86 million annually.

In Connecticut, where lawmakers set aside $30 million in pandemic funds to help schools transition out of federal free meals, state Sen. Saud Anwar said in December he’d introduce legislation in the upcoming session to create a permanent statewide program. Missouri state Rep. Brian Seitz has pre-filed a free school meal bill ahead of the new legislative session, which starts in January. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, will pursue universal free school meals legislation next year.

Several states could have a big backer for free school meals. Tusk Philanthropies’ Solving Hunger, which was founded by venture capitalist and political strategist Bradley Tusk, is supporting universal school meal campaigns in 2023 for Vermont, North Carolina, Connecticut and New York.

Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, which is receiving a grant from Solving Hunger, said she doesn’t want families to associate school with debt collection for unpaid school meal costs, a situation she says “the federal government has thrown so many school districts around the country into this year."

Vermont is among the few states that have already funded an extension of free meals for the 2022-23 school year. The state set up the temporary program with the intention of considering permanent solutions.

Rosie Krueger, state director of child nutrition programs, chaired a task force directed to recommend a permanent solution for universal school meals by the 2026-27 school year. She said the increase in meals served was both a challenge and a benefit: More students were eating but schools are dealing with a shortage of food service workers.

“I'm really proud of the meals that we serve in Vermont,” Krueger said, adding that most schools try to serve fresh meals made from scratch. She noted that “universal meals means increased participation, which is kind of butting up against that staffing issue. So I think once we can right size that, folks are getting more reimbursement for those meals.”