The Hawaiʻi State Department of Education is paying tens of millions of dollars to feed Hawaiʻi school children due to a flaw in the funding method used by the federal government, according to a report.

The authors of a report from Hawaiʻi Appleseed, Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network, the Hawaiʻi Afterschool Alliance, and Ulupono Initiative said the U.S. Department of Agriculture had not updated its funding formula since 1979.

The USDA is currently undergoing an updated analysis of its funding formula, but that will not be completed until 2025.

Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation sent a letter last week to the USDA calling for emergency funding.

“While we support the study’s objective to provide a comprehensive, accurate accounting of the real costs associated with producing and supplying school meals, we are concerned that the current school meal reimbursement rate for Hawaiʻi is not reflective of these costs, and that the state and its students are currently being negatively impacted,” they said in the letter.

The state’s farmers, who compete with commodity prices, are also affected, according to the authors of the report.

“Leaving federal dollars on the table short-changes our entire community because a portion of those funds would go to Hawaiʻi’s food producers, with that percentage growing each year as the DOE makes progress toward its goal of 30 percent locally sourced meals by 2030,” said Jesse Cooke, vice president of investments and analytics with Ulupono Initiative.