Wisconsin should adopt statewide free school lunches
The state of California made national headlines last week by becoming the first state to guarantee free meals to all students in the state’s schools regardless of income level.
Wisconsin, which is sitting on an embarrassingly large state budget surplus with no clear plans on what to do with it, should follow California’s lead and put a portion of those surplus funds toward making sure all students have the opportunity for nutritious and quality meals.
The program in California is expected to cost that state $650 million to provide meals to its 5.9 million students — this comes out to about $110 per student. As a matter of reference, California has more students in its schools than Wisconsin has total residents. Wisconsin has a population of 5.8 million people and has about 997,000 school aged children living here. Based on similar cost per student, Wisconsin’s cost for providing a similar style program would be roughly $110 million. For those doing the math at home, this comes out to about $19 per person in the state.
Wisconsin ended the fiscal year with more than a $3.5 billion dollar budget surplus. While income taxes and fees play a role, the driving force behind this massive influx of cash has been everincreasing sales tax revenue. As prices go up, the taxes paid on those goods and services goes up. At the same time, sales taxes present a disproportionate burden on lower income individuals. Paying an extra dollar or two to a high wage earner has less budgetary impact than for lower wage earners who live under much tighter budgets.
Among the various schemes of providing value to taxpayers for the surplus funds collected, using them to pay for young people having access to healthy meals is an investment in the future of the state.
It is also a wise financial investment in school funding by allowing teachers and administration to spend more time being educators and less time working as bill collectors or fielding complaints about serving portions being too small.
As part of federal COVID relief programs, in the past two years families of students across the county have not had to pay for meals served in the school buildings. This program has been wildly successful with student food service providers reporting massive utilization increases.
Without the stigma of needing to fill out forms or be singled out as being economically disadvantaged, all students deserve the opportunity to focus on learning rather than on their rumbling stomachs. A universal free school lunch program will also protect young people even from more economically well-off families who may find themselves short when it comes time to put money in student lunch accounts.
Wisconsin should follow California and use some of its budget surplus to assist families in ensuring that no child goes hungry.
Members of The Star News editorial board include Publisher Carol O’Leary, General Manager Kris O’Leary and News Editor Brian Wilson.
