Bills to transform Hawaiʻi’s school meals die in Senate

The Education Department’s cost estimate for HB540 was significantly higher than the estimated $19 million-$44 million range that Hawaiʻi Appleseed and other local organizations reported the free meals would cost the state, and this cost is anticipated to drop in 2024 following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s temporary reimbursement rate hike for operators of child nutrition programs in Hawaii.

The department said in an email statement to the Star-Advertiser, “Based on the total plate cost, including food, labor, and operations, minus the federal reimbursement, (the DOE) needs at least ($63.8 million) to fund this legislation at the current meal participation volume.”

All the bills followed a similar trajectory: They originated in the House of Representatives, were supported heavily by the public and advocates for local agriculture and anti-hunger initiatives, and were opposed primarily by the DOE, which usually said the bills were difficult to implement, expensive or both.

Similarly, while Kidani and Kim both said they supported the ideas behind the deferred bills, they raised concerns about their practicality.

The death of the bills is a blow to those pointing to high rates of hunger among Hawaii’s kids that aren’t being addressed by current programs to properly feed them. Although nearly 1 in 3 children in Hawaiʻi were food-insecure in 2020, according to a Feeding America report, fewer than 40 percent of Hawaiʻi students who qualify for the national School Breakfast Program participated in it—the worst participation rate in the country.