Kids losing school lunch due to federal SNAP cuts

 I have noted it several times on here already, but there is an opinion piece in The 74 discussing the loss of access to free meals due to SNAP cuts: 

Last summer, Congress made devastating cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, causing nearly 5 million Americans — including an estimated 1.5 million children — to lose their benefits. In doing so, those children lost their automatic eligibility for free school meals. Access to free meals is also now threatened for entire school districts in high poverty areas. This is a crisis hiding in plain sight, and as kids return to the classroom, it is hitting families and schools hard.

We're losing kids on free lunch

 Hey, remember how we've noted that as we lose SNAP enrollment, we're going to lose free lunch enrollment?

That has now started to be seen happening, per EdWeek

In addition to Miami-Dade, some schools in nearby Palm Beach County, Fla., Houston, the San Antonio area, and Hardin County, Ky., have also announced the end of universal free meals in recent months because they no longer qualify for CEP.

Hysom anticipates more districts will follow suit.

Ensuring next year's state budget is ready for federal impacts

 As I noted back in October, there were changes made to how the federal government is managing SNAP and Medicaid that will have impacts on school funding and on the state budget. I said then, and I continue to fear now, that I don't see indications that Massachusetts is making this part of our preparation for FY27 and beyond. 

The aid didn't go out

 You might remember back in late October during the government shutdown, Worcester with GREAT fanfare announced that there was a local effort to help families struggling with hunger as SNAP benefits were also shut down. Among the things listed:

...4,000 food gift cards — each worth $100 — will go to individuals and families who stand to lose SNAP benefits on Nov. 1....$150,000 will go to the Worcester Public Schools so students and their families have access to nutritious food

Now, I know I wasn't alone in observing that there are 24,000 students in the Worcester Public Schools and 72% of them count as low income, so that was not going nearly far enough. At least, I am sure we all thought, it was something.  

So I had to re-read these paragraphs from the T&G last week twice to be sure I understood this correctly: 

A recent example of the slow pace of bureaucracy is how 4,000 food gift cards were distributed to Worcester families who temporality lost federal food aid benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the recent government shutdown. 

Donations received by the United Way of Central Massachusetts paid for the cards, each with a $100 value, and Morales said 800 have been given to families of students in the Worcester Public Schools. More cards are available, but families must fill out an application and that takes time.

Morales also noted 1,300 of the 4,000 food cards were disbursed by the Worcester Community Action Council before Thanksgiving. 

So...just over half the cards went out BY A MONTH LATER?

And families of kids in WPS had to FILL OUT AN APPLICATION to get the cards?

Every day, the Worcester Public Schools feed any child who attends. No one fills out anything, because--and this is quite explicitly why the federal program works as it does!--WE KNOW THAT IS A BARRIER to food.

What on EARTH? 

we're about to have a whole lot of hungry people

 ...and while we couldn't be better represented in Congress when it comes to support for hungry people, as SNAP loses funding at the end of this week, and WIC is also in danger, I want to urge you to support local feeding efforts.

Here in Worcester, I'd urge you to send MONEY (money is always better than food donations to food banks; they can get more with it than you can!) to the Worcester County Food Bank. I am also a donor to the Worcester free fridges, where you can bring food or you can donate money; see their website for more information on both. For information on more local resources, as well as how to give, please see FoodHelpWorcester.

Also, this makes the school nutrition efforts that much more important. Here in Massachusetts, remember that we have universal free lunch; if you know of hungry families, please ensure their families are taking advantage of that.

What is freaking me out about funding right now

 I'm at the ASBO conference this week in Fort Worth--ASBO is the Association of School Business Officials--and one of the "must attends" for me is always the federal policy update jointly done by ASBO and AASA (that would be the superintendents). This stems from that presentation yesterday.¹

Setting aside for a moment:

1. that we do not currently have an operating federal government
2. because we do not have a federal budget or continuing resolution
3. and that some of the proposals for the federal budget have been alarming

I want to talk here about something that is actually going to happen because it is actually law and appears to not be in what is being planned for, at least from what I have seen in Massachusetts.

I know we've all got something else on our minds on federal funding right now but

 I did want to call to your attention this recently released report from the Center on Poverty and Inequality from Georgetown Law which analyzes the impact on state budgets of federal legislation: 

OBBBA introduced a new state matching requirement for benefits and increased the state share of administrative costs. Under OBBBA, states must cover part of the benefit costs for the first time, and their share of administrative costs will rise from 50 percent to 75 percent.

Click through to see the map on which you can hover; I share this because this is the result for Massachusetts:

The text reads: 

MASSACHUSETTS

State Cost Share Pre-OBBBA: $91,939,795

State Cost Share Post-OBBBA: $530,559,697

Increase in SNAP Share of State Budget 477%

 

I am fairly certain that no one in Massachusetts is budgeting for that, or even is able to.

Massachusetts has extra reason to be concerned about potential Medicaid and SNAP cuts

 One can only use the title "So, this is bad" so many times, but this qualifies

As K-12 Dive reports, proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, as passed by the House, have an ancellary impact on school meals: 

For school districts, this means fewer children would be enrolled in SNAP and Medicaid — programs for which student and family participation are used as a metric for automatically opting students into free and reduced-price school meals. 

This process, known as direct certification, helps high-poverty schools become eligible for participation in the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal program allowing access to free school meals for all students at the school or district level. The more students are identified for free or reduced-price meals, the higher federal reimbursement rate CEP schools will receive to cover food costs. 

When students are no longer automatically certified to receive free school meals, Bylander said, there’s an additional burden put on families, because they will need to go through an application process instead. 

That, of course, is bad enough, but Massachusetts also uses direct certification to determine district low income count for the foundation budget. This thus also would hit how chapter 70 is calculated.