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USDA freeze impacting school nutrition staff, other grants
USDA freeze impacting school nutrition staff, other grants

Yahoo

time04-04-2025

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

USDA freeze impacting school nutrition staff, other grants

Apr. 4—Federal funding for Maine's school nutrition staff has been frozen under a wider pause to education programs in the state that was announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Anna Korsen, the director of Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit that supports child nutrition programs in Maine, called the move "cruel," noting that even if the USDA didn't restrict funding for school meals themselves, it will make it impossible for them to keep working. The freeze was the latest jab at Maine education from the Trump administration since a dispute between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills over the state's transgender athlete policies erupted in February. In the letter, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the federal funding freeze would impact "administrative and technological functions in schools" but would not touch student nutrition or direct assistance for Mainers. The DOE had said it would not impact federal feeding programs, but Maine is now unable to access funds for the staff who operate those programs. A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education later said the agency received about $92.7 million from the USDA in fiscal year 2024. Of that, $86.6 million represents direct reimbursements for school meals. "The Maine DOE can confirm that, at this time, funding to cover the cost of food itself for school nutrition programs remains accessible," Chloe Teboe, a spokesperson for the Maine department, said Friday afternoon. "Not presently accessible to the Maine DOE, however, is USDA funding that supports Maine DOE administrative staff who operate school nutrition programs, as well as funding for certain other grant programs that take place outside of schools." She said the state has not received any further communication from the USDA since Wednesday's letter. Teboe did not provide details about what those other grant programs might be. She said the department is "continuing to assess impacts and evaluate options in light of these actions." Full Plates Full Potential works closely with its administrative staff and Korsen said that her organization received notice of the freeze from the state's DOE, which said it will pay for some of those staff temporarily. "These people are absolutely critical partners in the work to see kids in Maine, and freezing this funding — while technically it wasn't the funding that goes directly to feed the kids — it will make it impossible to continue to see kids if the funding isn't reinstated," Korsen said. She said the money spent on the state's child nutrition team is such a small fraction of the USDA's budget, but a significant cost to the state government. "This move by USDA was really cruel," Korsen said. "They are going to be keeping food from kids." Copy the Story Link

How proposed federal cuts are threatening Maine's free school meals for all
How proposed federal cuts are threatening Maine's free school meals for all

Yahoo

time19-03-2025

  • Health
  • Yahoo

How proposed federal cuts are threatening Maine's free school meals for all

Students getting their l lunch at a primary school in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Amanda Mills/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Maine's universal free school meals program is under threat as a result of proposed federal budget cuts, combined with the drop in bipartisan support at the state level. Five years ago, Maine became one of the first states nationwide to make school meals free for all students regardless of family income. That resulted in a majority of students benefiting from the program and led to increases in the number of students eating at school, but with a proposed $12 billion federal funding cut to school meals and cuts to Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the inability of the state to make up for the loss of federal funding in the state budget, advocates are sounding the alarm to try and preserve free breakfast and lunch, as well as summer and after school meals for all public school students. For a state such as Maine, which faces the highest child food insecurity in New England, that presents serious cause for concern, according to experts from several nonprofit organizations, the Maine Department of Education and food bank leaders. 'We're very concerned about these overlapping cuts as they pile on,' said Anna Korsen, policy and program director at Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit working with the state on several nutrition programs. 'We know that school budgets cannot shoulder those cuts. We know that the state budget can't afford these cuts. So we're concerned about how all of them together will impact funding for these programs.' Under the universal meal program, the state pays districts to offer meals without charging students, but the amount of money that comes from the federal government depends on the percentage of low-income families each public school serves. The higher the percentage of families that qualify for free meals, the bigger the federal reimbursement. Traditionally, this percentage was determined by parents filling out free-and-reduced meal applications, but now that school meals are free for all students, the state shifted away from relying on the applications and now uses different ways of determining the free and reduced meal eligibility in each school, which is an important data point used for various federally funded programs. One option is the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which at least 75 schools are using this year, according to Maine Department of Education and federal data. CEP simplifies the process by automatically qualifying schools with a high percentage of low-income students for the higher reimbursement rate. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school lunch programs, lowered the CEP eligibility threshold from 40% to 25%, meaning more schools could receive federal meal funding starting the 2024-25 school year. However, Maine has not yet adopted this change. If it does, nearly 400 schools could qualify for CEP starting next year. The 75 schools currently using the provision all qualified using the 40% threshold. But the $12 billion cut proposes raising the CEP threshold to 60%, drastically reducing the number of eligible schools in Maine from hundreds to just 31. This would put the burden on the state or districts, which does not have the budget to support the lack of funding, Korsen said. Cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would further strain the free meals program by reducing eligibility for federal reimbursement, because CEP takes into account participation in these programs to determine which families can be considered economically disadvantaged. Last year, the Maine Department of Education also started using this data (called direct certification) to determine student eligibility for free or reduced-price child who is enrolled in SNAP or MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program, is automatically deemed eligible for free and reduced price school meals, so that means that the school is going to receive federal funding to support feeding those students even without being a CEP school, Korsen said. If work requirements or other restrictions are added to SNAP and MaineCare, fewer families would qualify for these programs. As a result, even the 31 schools that currently meet the 60% threshold for CEP could lose their eligibility. 'At some point there's going to have to be hard choices, and we don't want school meals for all to suffer because of that,' she said. Finally, Korsen warned that although Gov. Janet Mills has called for extending the universal meal program in her budget proposal, its once bipartisan support is 'unraveling at the state level,' as the cost of the program has grown with inflation. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Advocates say cutting funding for school meals would be devastating for Maine children
Advocates say cutting funding for school meals would be devastating for Maine children

Yahoo

time08-02-2025

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

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. Copy the Story Link

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