Groups representing local school boards and administrators are making an eleventh-hour push to block a Senate child nutrition bill, saying their concerns about unfunded mandates in the legislation have been lost in the drive for passage by the White House and hundreds of advocacy groups.
“I look at this bill as death by a thousand cuts,” said Lucy Gettman, federal programs director for the National School Boards Association.
Gettman’s organization, the American Association of School Administrators and the Council of the Great City Schools banded together to urge “passage of a simple extension of current programs.”
But Noelle Ellerson, assistant policy analysis director with the school administrators group, said that while some lawmakers have expressed interest, no one seems ready to champion the groups’ cause.
“We have support, but not to the point where they are out in front on this,” Ellerson said.
The Senate-passed bill (S 3307) appeared to be gaining momentum Monday after stalling in the House before the fall recess due to House Democrats’ concerns about using $2.2 billion from the food stamp program to help offset $4.5 billion in new spending over the next decade.
Key Democratic lawmakers are expected to issue a letter that will support clearing the Senate bill, a sign that the Obama administration has assured wavering members that it will restore the reduction in a temporary boost in food stamp benefits.
Although some advocacy groups sought a vote this week, action might not occur until after Thanksgiving.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., posted online that an Agriculture Department report released Monday — it found that 14.7 percent of all U.S. households had trouble getting enough to eat in 2009 — underscored the need for expanding child nutrition programs for poor children.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Education Secretary Arne Duncan used a visit Monday to a public school in Washington as the backdrop for the administration’s call for action on the bill. Vilsack will continue to stress that theme Tuesday in an appearance at the Aspen Institute.
School administrator groups have praised much of the bill’s content but are worried about provisions they say could affect their bottom lines and infringe on local authority.
“We felt like it was time for the school districts to stand up and say, ‘Here’s the operational reality’ of the bill,” said Jeff Simering, legislative services director for the Council of the Great City Schools, which is an organization of big-city school districts.
The bill’s proposed six-cent increase in meal reimbursement rates is inadequate and could force school districts to subsidize free and reduced-price school meals, they said.
The reimbursement, available to districts that meet requirements for more vegetables, fruits and balanced meals, would not be authorized until fiscal 2013.
School groups are also concerned about a requirement that local districts put more non-federal money into their meal accounts. The provision aims to end the practice by many districts of using their federal meal subsidies to charge artificially low prices to students who can pay full price.
Ellerson said raising the meal prices should remain a local prerogative, especially if charging more drives students away from school lunches. The School Nutrition Association, which represents food service managers and their suppliers, has likewise expressed concern about the provision, but it decided to support the bill and seek changes later.
The National Governors Association also is wary of the pricing provision, as well as requirements for more state inspections of meal programs and a 2013 deadline for increasing the number of low-income children eligible for school meal programs. The group has not taken a position on the Senate bill.
Food managers and school administrators are divided on language to authorize an Agriculture Department review of the way school districts bill food service operations for utilities and other services. The indirect costs have been an irritant for school cafeteria managers, who have complained that many of the charges are unjustified.
The School Nutrition Association supports the provision.
-- Ellyn Ferguson, CQ Staff
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