The mini-budget recently passed by state lawmakers to fund urgent needs includes continued funding to support free school meals at schools with high concentrations of poverty.
The $3 million committed in state funds will help eligible schools afford to stay in a federal program known as the community eligibility provision that reimburses schools for offering free school meals to all students.
The idea of the community eligibility program is that if at least a quarter of students at a school qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the school can receive federal funds to offer free meals across-the-board. But school officials say it can be hard to stretch those federal funds to make the program work.
Abby Emanuelson, with the School Meals for All NC coalition, said the additional state funds will help schools that barely qualify for the program actually pay for the full cost of the meals.
"They're on that cusp," said Emanuelson, Executive Director of the North Carolina Alliance for Health–which is part of the coalition. "Each of our school nutrition programs are their own enterprise, and sometimes food costs are higher than what they can actually get reimbursed for."
Emanuelson said the funding in the mini-budget was good news for the 77% of the state's public schools that qualify.
"Either a portion of their school gets free school meals or the whole school," Emanuelson explained.
Advocates hoped for more advances to make school meals affordable
The funding in the mini-budget maintains the status quo for school meal affordability, and the School Meals for All NC coalition was pushing for more initiatives.
"Originally this year, we really had hoped that we were going to make a big difference in school breakfast," Emanuelson said.
Governor Josh Stein's proposed budget called for $85.3 million in state funding to offer free universal breakfast to all North Carolina students. A Republican-led House bill proposed $34 million in state funding for free school breakfasts this session, but that bill never progressed.
Both the House and Senate's respective biennial budget proposals included the funding that ultimately landed in the mini-budget. The House's budget also proposed $2.5 million in funds to help schools buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Advocates hope this could help make up for federal cuts to a program that helped schools purchase fresh local produce and meat from North Carolina farms, if the state passes a full budget.
However, negotiations on a final state budget appear to have stalled.
This comes amid federal cuts that could increase the number of North Carolina kids who rely on public schools for meals. Plus, Emanuelson said advocates worry that as more students may lose food benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) due to federal cuts, schools will have to complete more paperwork to qualify for the community eligibility provision.
"With that paperwork, we know that we're going to lose a lot of participation among schools and families, and more kids are going to go hungry," Emanuelson said.
