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Consultants: neighbor states provide limited school meal funding; Utah earmarks liquor tax
Summary
A consultant told lawmakers that Idaho and Montana provide no state meal funding, Nebraska and South Dakota recently adopted small targeted programs (about $1M and $600K annually) and Utah directs about 10% of liquor tax (roughly $50M in 24–25) to school meal programs; committee asked for follow‑up details about distribution mechanisms.
A school‑finance consultant briefed the select committee on how nearby states fund school meal programs and identified a handful of state approaches that Wyoming could study.
Michael Griffith, a school finance consultant with Pikus, Odd & Associates, told the committee that Idaho and Montana provide no additional state funding for school meal programs; Nebraska and South Dakota passed smaller targeted programs this year to reduce reduced‑cost lunch rolls into full free lunches (Griffith cited roughly $1,000,000 per year for Nebraska and about $600,000 per year for South Dakota after correcting a slide error). He said Colorado’s universal free‑lunch program is driven by a recent voter initiative and noted Utah earmarks 10% of the liquor tax for school meal programs, which generated about $50,000,000 in the 2024–25 school year.
Griffith acknowledged an earlier slide error that showed an incorrect South Dakota figure and apologized; he agreed to provide corrected slides and more detail to the committee on how Utah distributes its liquor‑tax dollars to districts (grants vs formula), saying he would aim to deliver those details by the next meeting.
Why it matters: committee members are considering whether and how the state should supplement district meal programs; the scale and mechanism of other states’ efforts provide comparison points and cost estimates.
No formal motions were made on nutrition funding during the hearing. The consultant agreed to return with information about Utah’s distribution method and supplemental details about neighboring programs.
