
Advocates say cutting funding for school meals would be devastating for Maine children
Feb. 7—Hunger prevention advocates say potential changes to school meals and food assistance programs could negatively affect nearly 22,000 students and more than 75 schools in Maine.
Their concerns stem from leaked documents that show the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee intends to roll back eligibility and make cuts in the programs, drastically altering how schools qualify for reimbursement for school meals and how much assistance families would receive to buy groceries.
Proposals outlined in the documents target the Community Eligibility Provision, which is used by schools to measure poverty in the community to ensure they're compensated by the federal government for school meals. Maine was one of the first states to mandate free meals for all students, but these changes would mean fewer federal dollars to cover the costs, according to hunger prevention advocates.
Advocates say any move that cuts benefits or makes school meals and food assistance programs more difficult to get could have a huge impact in Maine, which has the highest rate of childhood hunger in New England. One in five Maine children experiences food insecurity, according to Feeding America.
"If cuts are made by rolling back CEP, it's going to be dire for these schools," said Anna Korsen, policy director for Full Plates Full Potential, which works to end childhood food insecurity in Maine.
Currently, 168,528 students from 578 Maine schools participate in the National School Lunch Program, including 114 schools that participate in the CEP, according to the Maine Department of Education. Last year, the state received approximately $53 million in federal funding for school meal reimbursements.
A spokesman for the state Department of Education would not comment on the potential changes to CEP because it is "a dynamic situation."
Rolling back eligibility
The CEP allows high-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. Instead, schools are reimbursed based on data collected from other programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
According to budget reconciliation plans developed by Congressional Republicans and obtained by Politico, the Community Eligibility Provision would be rolled back to require a higher number of students in poverty in order to qualify. It would also require proof of income from families who would need to fill out the application for free meals.
Currently, schools qualify for reimbursement if 25% of students receive these programs. The proposal outlined in the proposed budget would lift that to 60%, cutting $3 billion from school breakfast and lunch programs over the next decade.
Requiring students to document and verify their families' income "would increase program integrity, ensuring those who receive benefits are in fact eligible and would preserve the fiscal sustainability of the program for future generations," according to the Republicans' outline. That change would result in $9 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the documents.
If those changes are adopted, it would negatively impact nearly 22,000 students in Maine, Korsen said. Only four schools would remain eligible under the proposed threshold.
Allison Leavitt, the nutrition director for Lisbon schools and president of the Maine School Nutrition Association, said nutrition directors are "a little nervous" about any proposed cuts that would make it harder to serve and pay for student meals. Since the state implemented free meals in 2022, more students have been served meals, reducing the stigma around eating school lunch and providing financial relief for parents, she said.
"This is the first thing that's really concerned and scared me," Leavitt said. "If the federal formula changes, the state of Maine isn't going to be able to pick up the rest. It will affect quite a few schools in the state."
Requiring families to fill out applications and provide income verification raises a number of concerns for nutrition directors, including the extra administrative time it would require, Leavitt said. That would mean staff would have less time to focus on cooking from scratch, training and sourcing local ingredients.
It can be difficult to get families to fill out those applications — especially if they require them to submit personal financial information, Leavitt said.
Chris Piercey, director of nutrition services for Auburn schools, said the district started using CEP in part because it eliminated the time schools spent getting parents to fill out applications and following up to fill in missing information.
"It's a very labor-intensive and time-consuming thing," he said. "To do that for every family who would be required to fill out the application is challenging."
Piercey said 40% of Auburn students live at the poverty level. Changing the CEP to 60% to qualify would result in "hard conversations" about where funding to pay for meals would come from.
'Devastating consequences'
As advocates and nutrition directors monitor proposals that would impact school meals, they're also hearing about potential cuts to SNAP.
"SNAP is absolutely critical. It is the first line of defense for so many households," said Korsen, the policy director at Full Plates Full Potential, noting that school meals allow SNAP recipients to stretch their benefits further by saving $165 per month per child.
Alex Carter, a policy advocate with Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit civil legal aid and economic justice organization, said SNAP has been singled out as a target by Republicans looking to reduce government spending. Her biggest concern is the idea of removing the reevaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula used to calculate SNAP benefit levels.
According to the documents from the Ways and Means Committee, repealing the Biden administration's 2021 expansion of the Thrifty Meal Plan would save up to $274 billion over 10 years.
Other plans outlined by Republicans call for changes to work requirements for SNAP recipients, resulting in $5 billion in savings over 10 years.
Carter said those changes, coupled with the rollbacks for school meals, would be "deeply unfair and dangerous."
"They all have such devastating consequences, particularly for low-income people in Maine and across the country," she said. "We're balancing the budget on the backs of low-income people who are already making sacrifices."
Korsen said Full Plates Full Potential has been in contact with members of Maine's congressional delegation to draw their attention to the proposed cuts and advocates' concerns about the impact of those changes.
"In our state and across the country, schools are doing such important work to support the nutritional needs of children from low-income backgrounds, helping to alleviate hunger and allowing students to focus on their studies. I've been a proud advocate of extending critical flexibilities for schools and meal programs and am a strong supporter of these critical services that do so much for Maine families in need," Republican Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement.
Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District, has been a longtime supporter of food assistance for low-income communities, but his spokesperson said it is too soon for him to comment on the proposed cuts.
Leavitt said she and other school nutrition directors hope the changes to CEP don't move forward.
"We know it's very early, but hopefully we can squash it where it's at and it doesn't go any further," she said.
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If U.S. negotiations with Iran do collapse, and American and/or Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities or other targets follow, it is unclear what the scale and scope of that operation might be, as already noted. The IDF has already demonstrated an ability to launch precision standoff strikes on Iran with virtual impunity in the past year, but only against targets on the surface. Israeli forces would face significantly greater challenges in neutralizing deeply buried sites tied to Iran's nuclear program. TWZ highlighted this reality after Israel announced its special operations forces had conducted a dramatic ground raid on an underground missile production facility in Syria last year. 'What member states decide to do is their prerogative,' IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told The Jerusalem Post yesterday. 'I don't advise the Israeli government. They will decide what's best.' 'But one thing is certain,' he added, 'The [Iranian nuclear] program runs wide and deep. And when I say 'deep,' I mean it. Many of these facilities are extremely well-protected. Disrupting them would require overwhelming and devastating force.' This is where questions about U.S. participation typically come into the picture. America's armed forces have a unique conventional deep-penetrating strike capability in the form of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers armed with GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs. TWZ highlighted the significance of this combination in reporting around the unusually large deployment of six B-2s to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia between March and May of this year, as well as the use of those bombers in strikes on Yemen last October. In both cases, we also pointed out the clear strategic signalling aimed at Iran. The B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia represented just a portion of the additional U.S. forces and materiel that flowed into the Middle East since the beginning of the year. In addition, last week, reports began to emerge that the U.S. military had diverted counter-drone capabilities originally intended to be delivered to Ukraine to American forces in the Middle East. Like Israel, the U.S. military could also launch its own standoff strikes on Iran via other aircraft, as well as ships and submarines, but would face similar limitations in the kinds of targets it might be able to prosecute. Questions have even been raised in the past about whether some of Iran's underground nuclear facilities might be beyond the reach even of the MOP. Strikes that do not fully destroy facilities could still put them out of commission for at least a limited time. Ground raids could also be launched as part of what might be a protracted campaign. Any such operation would require a much larger force package beyond just the assets tasked with carrying out the strikes, including to suppress and destroy hostile air defenses, and would present additional risks as a result. U.S. operations targeting Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen in the past year or so have highlighted how even more rudimentary air defenses can still present real threats to even advanced American aircraft, as you can read more about here. All of this would be further magnified by any need to mount a combat search and rescue effort to recover American personnel should their aircraft be downed inside Iran. The Houthis' arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as kamikaze drones, which the group has amassed with immense help from Iran, also underscores the dangers U.S. warships could face from Iranian retaliation. TWZ already explored the potential broader ramifications of a major conflict between the United States and Iran in detail earlier this year amid another spike in tensions between the two countries. Iran has long vowed to carry out a broad retaliatory response if its nuclear facilities are targeted. This could include missile and drone attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East on a scale and scope not seen ever before, as well as similar actions by proxy forces like the Houthis, along with terrorist attacks globally. 'We have a rule in CENTCOM: you improve your foxhole every single day,' Kurrila also said at today's hearing. Kurilla says an Israeli attack on Iran would increase the risks to safety of US troops in the region. 'We have a rule in CENTCOM: you improve your foxhole every single day.' — Jared Szuba (@JM_Szuba) June 10, 2025 Just this week, Iranian authorities explicitly threatened to strike Israeli nuclear sites if their own are targeted. This followed claims from Iran's intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, that his country is in possession of a trove of secrets about Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, which he has also threatened to publicly release. This remains largely unconfirmed, but IAEA's Grossi has indicated that the information Iran has relates primarily to Israel's publicly acknowledged Soreq nuclear research facility. It's also worth noting that Iran's general ability to threaten missile and drone attacks on targets further away from its shores has steadily grown in recent years. The U.S. Air Force's deployment in May of a contingent of F-15E Strike Eagle combat jets to provide force protection on Diego Garcia, which TWZ was first to report, highlights this fact. The island, where a force of a B-52 bombers also remains forward-deployed, has historically been seen as being less vulnerable, especially to smaller potential adversaries like Iran, simply due to its remoteness. Grossi, among others, has also warned that attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities could prompt the country to start an active nuclear weapons program. The U.S. Intelligence Community has publicly assessed that Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei is already under increasing pressure from domestic hardliners to do so. There is clear potential for other second-order impacts, as well. Iranian authorities have threatened the possibility of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, in times of heightened tensions in the past. Doing so would have major impacts on global oil and natural gas supplies. Yemen's Houthis have already massively disrupted international shipping with attacks on commercial vessels in and around the Red Sea in the past year or so. Regional and global impacts could draw in other countries and create additional complexities. Russia and China, for instance, have deep ties to Iran and interests in keeping the current regime in Tehran in place. All told, it remains to be seen whether the United States and/or Israel will launch attacks on Iran, including its nuclear sites. At the same time, that decision looks to heavily hinge on the increasingly uncertain future of ongoing U.S.-Iranian negotiations. Contact the author: joe@