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News about coronavirus in Florida and around the world is constantly emerging. It's hard to stay on top of it all but Health News Florida can help. Our responsibility is to keep you informed, and to help discern what’s important for your family as you make what could be life-saving decisions.

Advocates urge Congress to extend pandemic relief that provides free school meals to kids

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Jonathan Borba
/
via Unsplash
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

Advocates say families in Florida and across the nation are already struggling with rising food costs, and if these waivers expire in June, things will only get harder.

Public health advocates are calling on Congress to extend a waiver program that was implemented early in the coronavirus pandemic to provides free meals to students, including millions of children in Florida. The waivers are set to expire at the end of this school year.

The federal government gave schools more flexibility in how and where they could deliver meals and increased reimbursement rates to cover more kids and in some cases healthier food options.

If the waivers expire at the end of June, children could lose out on an important source of nutrition, according to Jamie Bussel, senior program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“Families are going to have a harder time affording food and schools are going to continue to face some pretty significant financial difficulties,” she said.

According to the foundation, school food service departments suffered more than $2 billion in federal revenue losses between March and November 2020.

Advocates also point to a recent survey that found 95% of school food service departments are struggling with staff shortages and 97% are facing rising costs due to supply chain issues.

Efforts to include an extension of the waiver program in an omnibus spending bill President Joe Biden signed last month failed. A group of federal lawmakers have since introduced bipartisan legislation to extend the flexibilities until the fall of 2023.

Some Republican lawmakers argue the waivers are too costly and that the pandemic is no longer disrupting everyday life enough to justify continued relief.

COVID-19 may more manageable now, says Bussel, but economic problems have not stopped.

“I think families in Florida, families across America are facing continued vicious challenges of rising food prices, loss of, you know, economic assistance like the expanded child tax credit, and having free school meals for all has helped,” she said.

States like California and Maine have made providing free school meals for all students permanent.

Copyright 2022 WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7

Stephanie Colombini joined WUSF Public Media in December 2016 as Producer of Florida Matters, WUSF’s public affairs show. She’s also a reporter for WUSF’s Health News Florida project.