School food advocates have been eagerly awaiting action from the Senate on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the legislation that determines school food policy and resources for the next five years. Yesterday, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, issued her proposal: The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 includes many excellent policy provisions allowing the USDA to set improved national nutrition standards for school meals and calling for a ban on the sale of junk food in schools. However, it proposes a funding increase of merely $0.06 per meal.
This proposed funding is simply not enough. No matter how strong the standards or how robust the policy, the fact is that schools’ ability to provide healthy food still comes down to money.
We know that most schools are already losing money on the food they serve (the School Nutrition Association estimates that schools lose an average of $0.35 per meal) and that fresh, healthy food is more costly. This reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act offers an opportunity to remedy that by providing increased funding for better school food. But Sen. Lincoln’s proposed increase is barely enough to acknowledge rising food costs, much less improve quality or expand access.
Sen. Lincoln’s proposal calls for a spending increase of $450 million per year over the next ten years. This is only 45 percent of the funding that Pres. Obama included in his proposed budget. For the past weeks, we’ve seen the advocacy community debate whether Pres. Obama’s proposed increase of $1 billion per year was enough; with Sen. Lincoln’s proposal, there is less room for debate: this is clearly not enough for real improvement.
Without robust funding in this reauthorization, schools will continue to struggle with efforts to provide more healthy meals. A lack of sufficient funding will also continue to put fiscal pressure on school districts, which must make up the difference between their actual cost per meal and the funding the government provides. Improved school nutrition involves increased spending on food, hiring of skilled food service personnel, training for food service personnel, supplies, and proposed nutritional programming. We will continue to come up short on providing our students with nutritious meals that prepare them to succeed academically unless we provide adequate funding.
While we applaud the policy improvements proposed by Sen. Lincoln and supported by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, we urge the senators to increase the funding for schools to provide the healthful meals that support children’s health and learning.
The Obama administration has made it clear that improving school nutrition and addressing child obesity are high-priority policy areas. Now, we need the U.S. Senate to meet the budget benchmark that the President has set.
This bill is moving quickly and we need Congress to hear from advocates across the U.S. that increased funding for better school food must be a priority. Please take a moment to contact your senators and ask them to support a greater increase in funding for better school food, at least the $1 billion per year that Pres. Obama has proposed.
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