House bill would use leftover school-meal money to pay districts' unpaid lunch debt

House Appropriations members spent more than an hour Wednesday debating House Bill 1100, a re-referral from Representative Pat Heinert that would direct any unspent portion of a $6 million state appropriation for expanded school meal eligibility toward unpaid school meal debt. Heinert told the committee the original appropriation was intended to expand eligibility and that “we have people who aren't paying for their meals” and that what remains of the appropriation should be used to “divide that up between the schools that had…school lunch debt.”

The bill would rely on the balance remaining at the end of the fiscal cycle; Representative Heinert said the committee expects roughly $2 million to $2.2 million could remain. Department of Public Instruction child nutrition director Lynelle Johnson told members the state’s school-meal population numbers and reimbursement context. “Statewide there’s about 31,000 students that qualify for free, about 7,700 students that qualify for reduced and around currently 1,800 students that qualify for the state 200,” Johnson said, adding there are “about 125,000 students…