For students in families facing economic hardships, school-provided breakfasts and lunches are often the most sustaining and nutritious meals of the day. For some, they are the only meals of the day.

Yet, a report that our organizations published in May details how Hawaiʻi has inexplicably missed out on more than $221 million in federal funding over the past 20 years to cover costs for the state’s school meal programs.

The report, “Feed Our Keiki, Support Our Schools, Help Our Farmers,” documents how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reimburses schools and others operating qualifying child nutrition programs for each meal served and how these federal reimbursements have not kept up with food costs in Hawaiʻi.

Despite Hawaiʻi’s skyrocketing food costs over the decades compared with the rest of the country, the USDA reimbursement rate for Hawaii has not been revised since 1979, except for standard inflation. The “Feed Our Keiki” report finds that the federal school meal reimbursement rates for Hawaiʻi currently should be 62 percent higher than other states, but it has been stuck at only 17 percent higher since 1979.

As a result, our state now subsidizes school meals with more than $20 million per year, which means less state funding is available to cover other essential education costs ranging from funding for afterschool programs to pay for teachers.