Protect School Meals In Federal Budget Process: A Big Budget Debate Is Coming Up Soon That Could Impact Our Ability To Keep Kids Fed

From Hunger Free Colorado:

A big budget debate is coming up soon and it could impact our ability to keep kids fed. Budget reconciliation is a special process to consider changes to budget and taxes for mandatory spending programs. We are sharing this toolkit to provide some background information along with a call to action, a sample call script and email, and a set of key targets to help you make your voices heard at this important moment!

What’s going on?

The House Ways and Means Committee has proposed a menu of devastating cuts to social safety net programs, including child nutrition programs, to include in an upcoming Budget Reconciliation Bill in order to pay for tax cuts that mostly benefit the most wealthy. 

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a federal program that allows schools in low-income areas to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost. It reduces administrative paperwork and increases participation in school meals. CEP currently helps more than 1300 Colorado schools to streamline and fund their meals for students. This program is a critical tool we use in Colorado to bring federal funding to support our Healthy School Meals for All program. 

One of the key factors that is used to determine if a school can participate in CEP is something called “ISP” or the “Identified Student Percentage”. This is the percentage of students in a school who are automatically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other federal programs like SNAP. 

The ISP was lowered from 40% to 25% in 2023 to allow a wider range of schools with a significant portion of low-income students to participate while still ensuring a substantial level of need to justify the financial implications. 

• CURRENT PROPOSAL: Right now, Congress is looking at cutting $3 billion by raising the eligibility threshold for schools to participate in CEP. They want to raise the ISP to 60% – meaning a school district would have to have at least 60% of its students qualify for free meals through another program to be eligible to participate in the CEP program. This would not only greatly reduce the number of kids who will be fed and families who will get assistance at a time when many families are struggling to get by, but also drastically increase administrative costs. 

This proposal would mean that more than 24,000 schools across the country, serving more than 12 million children would no longer be eligible to participate in CEP. In Colorado, it would drastically increase the cost to the state of Healthy School Meals for All, putting further pressure on Colorado taxpayers to foot the bill for keeping kids fed and thriving at school and would put the program at further risk of cuts. 

The House proposal would also require all families from non-CEP schools who apply and are approved to document their household income when they submit their school meal application. This would make applying for school meals incredibly complicated and burdensome for schools and cause many children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals to fall through the cracks. 

• TAKE ACTION: We need your help! Call or email your House members and tell them to oppose these cuts! Share your stories and talk about the negative impact these proposals would have on the students, families, schools and communities within their district. New Republican representatives from Colorado could be particularly impactful in these negotiations, so this is especially important if you are represented by a Republican in Congress, since they could sway their leadership. 

Sample Call Script. 

Here is an example to contact your House member. Please, include your own thoughts and experiences as well. 

Hello. My name is _____. I live in your district and [add some information about yourself (I am a parent, an educator, a school nutrition professional, a farmer, a pediatrician) and why you care about this issue]. I am calling to express my extreme concern about proposed cuts to school meals that will impact 12 million children in 24,000 schools across the country. The proposal would make the Community Eligibility Provision, an option that more than 1300 Colorado schools use to streamline and fund their meal operations, much harder to access. The proposals would also put much more burdensome paperwork on families and schools, making it harder and costlier to keep kids from being hungry at school. We should not be pushing cuts on the back of children. Please, oppose this proposal if it comes before you. Thank you. 

Sample Email: 

Here is a sample that you can build from to contact your House member. Please, include any of your own stories or experiences or insights from your district. 

Subject: Oppose Proposed Change to Federal School Meals Program 

Dear Rep. _____, 

My name is _____. I live in your district and [add some information about yourself (I am a parent, an educator, a school nutrition professional, a farmer, a pediatrician) and why you care about this issue]. I have seen first hand the benefit of ensuring that more schools are able to be part of the Community Eligibility Provision or CEP, which allows schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to keep kids fed. 

CEP helps ensure more schools that are serving low-income families are able to provide nutritious food to all students while streamlining the program to keep costs down. It helps more than 1300 Colorado schools to streamline and fund their school meal programs. 

Studies have shown that school meals are just as important to students’ academic success as textbooks and transportation. Right now as part of the budget reconciliation process, there is a proposal to make fewer schools serving low-income families eligible for the critical CEP program and to put more burdensome paperwork on parents and families, educators, and school nutrition professionals.  

This proposal would mean that more than 24,000 schools across the country, serving more than 12 million children would no longer be eligible to participate in CEP. It would also raise the cost of Colorado’s voter-approved Healthy School Meals for All program.

I am proud that in our state we make sure that kids are not hungry at school. This would be a devastating step backwards. We should not be pushing cuts on the back of children. Please, oppose this proposal if it comes before you. 

Providing school meals is an investment in the health and academic success of our children. Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely,

Name

Phone

Email

Address (for verification that you live in the district) 

KEY TARGETS FOR OUTREACH: If you live or work in any of these key target’s districts, please reach out to them: Rep. Jeff Hurd, Rep. Gabe Evans, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Jeff Crank. Don’t live in these districts? It is still important for your House member to hear from you. Click here to find your representative and their contact information. 

Rep. Lauren Boebert

Phone: 202-225-4761 (call and leave a message) 

General contact: Contact | Congresswoman Lauren Boebert

Rep. Jeff Crank

Phone: 202-225-4422 (call and leave a message) 

General contact: Email Me | Representative Jeff Crank

Rep. Gabe Evans

Phone: 202-225-5625 (call and leave a message) 

General contact: Address Lookup | Representative Gabe Evans

Rep. Jeff Hurd

Phone: 202-225-4676 (call and leave a message) 

General contact: Address Lookup | Congressman Jeff Hurd

Additional Talking Points: 

• A majority of Colorado voters support our Healthy School Meals program and are seeing the positive impacts that ensuring nutrition at school can have. We should be ensuring more schools and states provide meals to all students, not fewer. 
• Just two years ago, a change was made to lower the eligibility from 40% to 25% in recognition that not only were families struggling to get by and many kids in need of support were falling through the cracks, but also to help streamline the programs and reduce administrative costs. This change would negatively impact kids, families and schools. 
• The Community Eligibility Provision is good business practice for schools. It dramatically reduces administrative work for schools by eliminating the need for school food service departments to process school meal forms, and to no longer deal with school meal debt. 
• Robust school meal programs ensure that Colorado children have the food they need to thrive at school, support local agriculture, and help families to save money. 
• Schools should continue to have the choice to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision, which ensures that all students have access to nutritious school breakfasts and lunches that fuel their health and learning. Congress should be working to strengthen and expand CEP so we can ensure students have the nutrition they need to thrive at school, not reduce the number of schools that qualify.

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This will be an ongoing process. The Hunger Free Colorado policy and organizing teams (Anya, Carmen, Erika, Nicholas) will continue to be in touch with updates and opportunities to take action. Thank you for working with us to ensure that federal policies are crafted to support and not harm our communities and our work to reduce food insecurity and end hunger. Please, do not hesitate to reach out if we may be helpful – or if you have any ideas or ways that we can support your work!