Relates to eligible purchases by school breakfast and lunch service programs receiving additional state subsidies

• Democratic34
• Republican14

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Michelle Hinchey says this is needed

The reimbursement for school lunches was added in 2018 to encourage the purchase of fresh, healthy, and whole or minimally-processed foods to support the health and nutritional well-being of school children while also supporting New York farms. In addition, at a time when dairy farm- ers in New York are struggling, adding this incentive would provide them with much-needed support and give our children access to higher quality products. This program includes a $10 million appropriation through the State Education Budget. Up to this point, only 49 school districts across the state qualified for the incentive, and upon audit, only 7 school districts were actually approved. This language change will give schools access to this already allocated funding, which has not yet been fully utilized, and significantly expand the benefits of this valuable program to more school. One of the biggest impediments to qualifying for the incentive is that lunch is the only meat that can be counted toward the 30 percent thresh- old. This means that milk, yogurt, cheese, and fresh fruit served at school breakfast or as snacks do not count. Not only will this bill expand access to healthy, nutritious foods for our school children, it will incentivize school to procure these foods by simplifying the eligi- bility process by covering all their purchasing. According to Hunger Solutions New York, 4,912 schools across the state offer lunch programs serving over one million students, with 1,562 schools also offering free breakfast to over 500,000 children. We are falling very short of serving these children with healthy, locally grown, and sourced foods. We can make this incentive a win-win for our school children and New York farmers and food products with the addition of breakfast and snacks to that incentive.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.