Roxanne Blais, left, and Karen Durisko serve lunch to students at Lisbon Community School on Friday. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Hunger prevention advocates say potential changes to school meals and food assistance programs could negatively affect nearly 22,000 students and more than 75 schools in Maine.

Their concerns stem from leaked documents that show the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee intends to roll back eligibility and make cuts in the programs, drastically altering how schools qualify for reimbursement for school meals and how much assistance families would receive to buy groceries.

Proposals outlined in the documents target the Community Eligibility Provision, which is used by schools to measure poverty in the community to ensure they’re compensated by the federal government for school meals. Maine was one of the first states to mandate free meals for all students, but these changes would mean fewer federal dollars to cover the costs, according to hunger prevention advocates.

Advocates say any move that cuts benefits or makes school meals and food assistance programs more difficult to get could have a huge impact in Maine, which has the highest rate of childhood hunger in New England. One in five Maine children experiences food insecurity, according to Feeding America.

“If cuts are made by rolling back CEP, it’s going to be dire for these schools,” said Anna Korsen, policy director for Full Plates Full Potential, which works to end childhood food insecurity in Maine.

Currently, 168,528 students from 578 Maine schools participate in the National School Lunch Program, including 114 schools that participate in the CEP, according to the Maine Department of Education. Last year, the state received approximately $53 million in federal funding for school meal reimbursements.

A spokesman for the state Department of Education would not comment on the potential changes to CEP because it is “a dynamic situation.”

Rolling back eligibility

The CEP allows high-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. Instead, schools are reimbursed based on data collected from other programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

According to budget reconciliation plans developed by Congressional Republicans and obtained by Politico, the Community Eligibility Provision would be rolled back to require a higher number of students in poverty in order to qualify. It would also require proof of income from families who would need to fill out the application for free meals.

Allison Leavitt, the director of nutrition for the Lisbon School Department, at the Lisbon Community School on Friday. Leavitt, who is also the president of the Maine School Nutrition Association, said nutrition directors are “a little nervous” about any cuts to school meal funding. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Currently, schools qualify for reimbursement if 25% of students receive these programs. The proposal outlined in the proposed budget would lift that to 60%, cutting $3 billion from school breakfast and lunch programs over the next decade.

Requiring students to document and verify their families’ income “would increase program integrity, ensuring those who receive benefits are in fact eligible and would preserve the fiscal sustainability of the program for future generations,” according to the Republicans’ outline. That change would result in $9 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the documents.

If those changes are adopted, it would negatively impact nearly 22,000 students in Maine, Korsen said. Only four schools would remain eligible under the proposed threshold.

Allison Leavitt, the nutrition director for Lisbon schools and president of the Maine School Nutrition Association, said nutrition directors are “a little nervous” about any proposed cuts that would make it harder to serve and pay for student meals. Since the state implemented free meals in 2022, more students have been served meals, reducing the stigma around eating school lunch and providing financial relief for parents, she said.

“This is the first thing that’s really concerned and scared me,” Leavitt said. “If the federal formula changes, the state of Maine isn’t going to be able to pick up the rest. It will affect quite a few schools in the state.”

Requiring families to fill out applications and provide income verification raises a number of concerns for nutrition directors, including the extra administrative time it would require, Leavitt said. That would mean staff would have less time to focus on cooking from scratch, training and sourcing local ingredients.

It can be difficult to get families to fill out those applications — especially if they require them to submit personal financial information, Leavitt said.

Chris Piercey, director of nutrition services for Auburn schools, said the district started using CEP in part because it eliminated the time schools spent getting parents to fill out applications and following up to fill in missing information.

“It’s a very labor-intensive and time-consuming thing,” he said. “To do that for every family who would be required to fill out the application is challenging.”

Piercey said 40% of Auburn students live at the poverty level. Changing the CEP to 60% to qualify would result in “hard conversations” about where funding to pay for meals would come from.

‘Devastating consequences’

As advocates and nutrition directors monitor proposals that would impact school meals, they’re also hearing about potential cuts to SNAP.

“SNAP is absolutely critical. It is the first line of defense for so many households,” said Korsen, the policy director at Full Plates Full Potential, noting that school meals allow SNAP recipients to stretch their benefits further by saving $165 per month per child.

Allison Leavitt asks a student about their milk preference at Lisbon Community School Friday. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Alex Carter, a policy advocate with Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit civil legal aid and economic justice organization, said SNAP has been singled out as a target by Republicans looking to reduce government spending. Her biggest concern is the idea of removing the reevaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula used to calculate SNAP benefit levels.

According to the documents from the Ways and Means Committee, repealing the Biden administration’s 2021 expansion of the Thrifty Meal Plan would save up to $274 billion over 10 years.

Other plans outlined by Republicans call for changes to work requirements for SNAP recipients, resulting in $5 billion in savings over 10 years.

Carter said those changes, coupled with the rollbacks for school meals, would be “deeply unfair and dangerous.”

“They all have such devastating consequences, particularly for low-income people in Maine and across the country,” she said. “We’re balancing the budget on the backs of low-income people who are already making sacrifices.”

Korsen said Full Plates Full Potential has been in contact with members of Maine’s congressional delegation to draw their attention to the proposed cuts and advocates’ concerns about the impact of those changes.

“In our state and across the country, schools are doing such important work to support the nutritional needs of children from low-income backgrounds, helping to alleviate hunger and allowing students to focus on their studies. I’ve been a proud advocate of extending critical flexibilities for schools and meal programs and am a strong supporter of these critical services that do so much for Maine families in need,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement.

Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District, has been a longtime supporter of food assistance for low-income communities, but his spokesperson said it is too soon for him to comment on the proposed cuts.

Leavitt said she and other school nutrition directors hope the changes to CEP don’t move forward.

“We know it’s very early, but hopefully we can squash it where it’s at and it doesn’t go any further,” she said.