Governor Janet Mills is urging Congress to resist proposed cuts to funding for free school meal programs.
Maine was among the first states in the country to fully fund universal free school meals in 2021. Mills said today, more than 100,000 children in the state eat school meals every day.
"School meals are for everybody," she said. "It shouldn't be a partisan issue. It shouldn't be a DOGE issue. It should be a commonsense issue for Congress to continue funding school meals and for the state to include it in our budget."
Mills is also asking Maine legislators to support $6 million in state funds to support free meal programs — money that had been allocated as part of her budget proposal, but was not included in the budget bill passed last month.
And as free school meal programs brace for proposed federal cuts, Maine lawmakers are considering a bill to bolster state funding to maintain them.
Senator Mike Tipping's bill would require schools to maximize the reimbursement they receive from the federal government, before getting funding from the state for free meals.
"Now we must solidify our commitment to feeding all Maine's children in school as we face draconian budget proposals on the federal level, they would make it harder for schools to feed students and for their families to access federal nutrition programs," Tipping said.
The bill also includes $6 million for free school meals, which was not included in the budget bill that was passed last month.
At a public hearing on the bill before the Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, no one spoke in opposition.
Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood food insecurity, reports that school meals save families an average of $160 a month per child.
The group's Justin Strasburger said that school meals are a lifeline for families in Maine.
"Let's be honest about what's happening here," he said. "It's being called cost sharing, but it's really cost shifting onto states like ours, onto schools, onto families, onto kids."
