Colorado's free school lunch program concerned with long term sustainability
A state program that's been helping serve up healthy meals for all Colorado students is posing concerns about whether it can be sustainable financially.
That's according to research conducted by a policy group and stakeholders on the implementation of Healthy School Meals for All in Colorado, a program supported by Colorado voters that first took effect last school year.
"It's really frustrating that the first time that we run into any sort of hiccup, the immediate reaction is we need to cut this highly successful program," said Scott Smith, chief financial and operating officer for Cherry Creek Schools.
Smith tells CBS Colorado over 40% more students have chosen to access free school meals since the program started.
"It's been a huge success," said Smith. "We know that kids can't learn if they don't eat, and unfortunately there are kids who get their only warm meal at school."
He says their district is also noticing how the program is reducing the stigma behind asking for free lunches, especially among children who may already qualify for free and reduced lunches but do not want people to know they are in need.
"I'd say most notably high school. We're seeing a lot more high schoolers take advantage of free meals than we have seen in the past, and I think that's a huge benefit," said Smith. "If you can go get lunch now and no one knows who would've normally gotten it free or who would've had to pay for it, that stigma goes away."
However, with the program's popularity comes unexpected costs.
"We really want to make sure that we keep it whole," Shannon Thompson, public policy and legislative chair for the Colorado School Nutrition Association.
Through funding from the voter-approved tax increase from Proposition FF, the state estimated Healthy School Meals for All in Colorado would cost around $100 million in the first year of implementation. However, because of the high demand, the policy report estimates the program was underfunded by roughly $24 million for the 2023-2024 school year, and it could increase to being underfunded by about $50 million for the 2024-2025 school year.
"Demand is outpacing revenue and unfortunately this is a trend that we've seen in K-12 in our state over the last few years," said Smith. "First, with universal preschool and now with healthy meals for all."
The Urban Institute report presented before the Joint Budget Committee earlier this month lists 27 recommendations for how the state could cut spending costs in order to sustain the program, including eliminating access to free meals for high schoolers or removing free breakfast for students.
These, however, do not sit well with people like Thompson.
"It really would be detrimental to the program," she said. "When you feed everyone for free, then no one knows who doesn't have enough money or who might be going through issues at home."
"It was really quite disappointing that so many of the recommendations were focused on how to cut costs," said Smith. "You don't have an expenditure problem, you have a revenue problem."
Smith says state leaders should be finding solutions that boost revenue into the program rather than putting the oneness on students and or districts to foot the bill.
"It's not the voters' fault, nor is it the school district's fault that the state hasn't stepped up to fill this gap. And we've said in Cherry Creek, we're not going backward," said Smith. "I think we need to ask our legislators if they truly value public K-12 education in the state."
