Why Should Delaware Care?
Research shows that students who eat school meals have a better overall diet, attendance rates, and test scores. But the cost of the bill for schools ineligible for federal subsidies means Delaware taxpayers will shoulder the cost of the expansion of the free meal program.
A bill to provide free breakfast and lunch to all Delaware students cleared its first committee vote Wednesday despite concerns over its projected multimillion-dollar cost.
House Bill 125 would require all Delaware schools to offer all students free breakfast and lunch every school day, regardless of income. The bill was voted out of the Delaware House of Representatives’ Education Committee on Wednesday afternoon.
The bill aims to ease the financial impact on families and prevent any student from going hungry at school while reducing stigma and stress related to participating in the free or reduced meal program. The bill was introduced in April 2023 by Rep. Sherae’a “Rae” Moore (D-Middletown).
“Kids deserve to eat,” Rep. DeShanna Neal said in support of the bill during the committee meeting Wednesday. “If a child is thinking about food, they’re not thinking about school.”
Rep. Eric Morrison (D-Glasgow), a former educator, also voiced his strong support for the bill as he invoked his firsthand experience of seeing children go hungry during the school day. Morrison noted that he could not imagine money “more well spent” in response to concerns about the bill’s price.
“I’m a former educator and I know what an issue this is,” Morrison said. “As the afternoon goes on, you can tell which students have eaten and you can tell which ones have not.”
Critics raised concerns about the bill’s roughly $122 million price tag over the first three years of its rollout. The proposal is projected to cost $38.8 million next fiscal year, $40.6 million in Fiscal Year 2026 and $42.5 million in FY 2027.
Rep. Bryan Shupe (R-Milford) raised concerns over the cost of the bill and whether it would ultimately cost the families who would receive free student meals in the future. HB125 does not propose to raise any taxes, but lawmakers would have to use state savings or divert other budgeted funds to pay for it.
Rep. Valerie Jones Giltner (R-Georgetown) argued that there are parents who don’t need their children to get a free meal and the bill would be wasting valuable resources. She proposed changing the level of qualification for the bill so that resources are just going to people that need them, instead of covering everyone.
“People that make a lot of money don’t need you to feed their kids for free,” she said.
One breakfast for one student is estimated to cost the state 30 cents to $2.35, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill. Roughly 10.4 million breakfasts are served in Delaware schools each year.
Similarly one lunch is estimated to cost between 40 cents and $3.85 and there are about 18.2 million lunches served in Delaware schools each year.
Alison May, spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Education, expressed concern on behalf of the department about how the bill’s cost could limit the state’s ability to fund other priorities.
“While supportive of the concept of the bill, the department recognizes the high fiscal note,” May said in a written statement.
During the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture relaxed the restrictions to allow all students to enjoy free breakfast and lunch. In June 2022, Delaware schools were required to return to the more restrictive pre-COVID policies.
However, many Delaware schools continue to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students because the schools qualify for Community Eligibility Provisions (CEP) under the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
Schools can qualify for CEP based on the percentage of students who come from low-income households and then be reimbursed for the costs by the federal government.
The percentage is calculated on the number of students receiving benefits from programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and includes students who are identified as homeless, foster, migrant or runaway.
CEP allows schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students without families needing to file paperwork to prove income eligibility or incur related costs.
Nearly 55% of state public schools that offer school meals have adopted CEP in the current school year, according to the Delaware Department of Education. Of those 242 schools, 133 are using CEP to defray any cost for it, leaving 109 who are shouldering some cost.
Students who are not attending a CEP-eligible school can still qualify for free and reduced meals based on income in Delaware. A parent or guardian of these students is required to fill out an eligibility form, which asks for income information for all adult household members.
In schools that are not enrolled in CEP, families must pay for the cost of the reduced and full price lunches. The bill would expand the benefits so even families in non-CEP schools would not have to pay those fees.