Gov. Cox, lawmaker, state school board, private partners take aim at school lunch debt

As another school year gets underway in Utah, the issue of school lunch debt has risen to the fore. By some estimates, there was $2.8 million in school lunch debt accumulated during the previous school year. A number of approaches have been broached to ensure students get the nutrition they need and school districts get debt relief.

State Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, raised the issue during the Utah Legislature’s General Session. He proposed eliminating the reduced-price category of school meals and providing qualifying students the meals at no charge. The proposal raised an important issue but wasn’t funded. Clancy said will continue to work on the issue.

He may have a champion in the Utah State Board of Education, which is considering its support of the eliminating the reduced-price meals category and asking the Utah Legislature to appropriate $5 million ongoing as one of its policy and funding priorities for the 2025 General Session of the Utah Legislature. State funds would cover the reduced-price meal charge of 30 cents for each breakfast and 40 cents for each lunch.

The proposal is among 15 funding requests the state school board is expected to prioritize prior to a meeting with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s administration later this month. The board took no action Friday except to agree to submit their respective priorities to board leaders and conduct another meeting before meeting with the governor.

Meanwhile, Cox has taken steps to assist school districts dealing with school meal debt by creating a new grant program allowing them to apply for reimbursement.

The Cox administration has redirected $1.2 million of American Rescue Plan Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools funds to the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Program to create the new grant program.

“Our students are the future of Utah, and investing in their health and education is vital to the success of our state,” Cox said in a statement.

“We are committed to ensuring Utah students receive the meals they need. I am grateful for the cooperation of the State Board of Education, our schools and districts.”

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 authorized states to revert unobligated emergency assistance funds to the governor’s emergency education relief program.

At the same time, private fundraising efforts are underway to pay off school accounts in arrears.

Earlier this summer, Silicon Slopes CEO Clint Betts announced that the nonprofit organization led by Utah tech and business leaders is partnering with the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation “to eliminate school lunch debt in Utah once and for all.”

The foundation was founded by DJ Bracken, a Utah father who learned that schools across the state were facing $2.8 million in collective school lunch debt. He requested a list of school lunch debts in each Jordan School District elementary school and began paying them off, one by one, according to the foundation’s website.

Betts announced in early August that “ @siliconslopes is donating all net proceeds from individual and corporate memberships to the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation . All of it. From this day forward,” Betts tweeted.

In a recent virtual town hall, Betts urged all participants to collaborate on solutions.

“I’m not sure that Silicon Slopes and Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation are the long term solution to this,” he said.

“I don’t think any of us believe any child should ever be stigmatized for not being able to pay for school lunch or told they have a negative balance that they need to go home and tell their parents about. No child should ever go without food at school or anywhere else. I believe we live in the greatest state in the greatest country in the world and this shouldn’t be a problem. So that’s why we’re here. Why is it a problem? What should we do about it? Since this is a Utah problem, it’s up to Utahns to solve,” he said.

Earlier this year, Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Utah, proposed a different tack to addressing school lunch debt. He proposed that the Utah Legislature appropriate $4 million to eliminate the reduced-price meal category for school students and provide the meals to students from household incomes at no cost.

According to Clancy’s presentation to a legislative committee during the 2024 General Session, school lunch debt more commonly occurs among households that qualify for reduced-priced meals.

“Families right now that used to be middle class are struggling more now than ever, I think, because of inflation and specifically the increased cost of food,” he said at the time.

School nutrition programs use U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines to determine eligibility. Children whose household incomes are 130% of the federal poverty guidelines for free meals and those whose household income are 185 of federal poverty guidelines qualify for reduced price breakfast and lunch.

Other children qualify if their households receive food stamps, they are foster children that are under the legal responsibility of a foster care agency or court or they participate in Head Start or meet the federal definition of homeless, runaway or migrants. Children whose households participate in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations program or the Family Employment Program are eligible for free meals.

School nutrition programs are largely subsidized by the federal government. In Utah, a portion of the state liquor tax also supports the programs.

Some states provide free school meals to all students regardless of income. California, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts have all passed free Healthy School Meals for All policies, according to the Food Research and Action Center .

Neil Rickard, child nutrition advocate for the nonprofit organization Utahns Against Hunger , said the organization favors the free Healthy School Meals for All approach but “you have to operate in the political landscape you’ve got.”

There are several approaches “that are going to be feasible here in Utah, and not just like, ‘Oh, we can twist people’s arms to get this,’ but things that we can get general consensus on that are real positive changes such as streamlining processes here in the state,” he said.