28-04-2025
Healthy school meals program in jeopardy
Colorado offers every student a free breakfast and lunch at school — a two-year-old initiative so popular that it's now running short on money.
Why it matters:"Kids who are hungry are also more likely to struggle with academic performance due to irritability, depression, anxiety and difficulty with concentration," Sandra Hoyt Stenmark, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said in a statement.
By the numbers: The state is serving 194,000 breakfasts and 451,000 lunches at 1,805 sites a year, according to the Colorado Department of Education, which oversees the Healthy School Meals for All Program.
The number of breakfasts and lunches served grew at least 30% last year and continues to rise.
The latest: To keep the program alive, state lawmakers crafted two November ballot measures that ask voters for more money.
One seeks voters' permission to keep $12.4 million state tax revenue that exceeded initial estimates, which otherwise must be refunded under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, TABOR.
The second ballot question expands the program by curtailing tax deductions for those making more than $300,000 a year. It's expected to generate more than $95 million a year to make the program solvent.
Friction point: If the referendums fail, authorities plan to shrink its scope and offer it to only the neediest schools.
Catch up quick: Colorado voters approved Proposition FF in the 2022 election, making permanent a pandemic-era program.
The program is powered by a tax hike on those who make $300,000 or more a year.
It tallied a deficit in its first two years and expects to fall $42 million short next year.
The tight budget year meant lawmakers couldn't cover the gap as they succeeded in doing the first two years.
What they're saying: In an interview, state Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet (D-Commerce City) touted the program's popularity and how it has "completely changed lunch culture. … There's no more lunch shaming."
