HARTFORD – State Senator Herron Keyon Gaston (D-Bridgeport)voted with his colleagues today to fund free student breakfasts and lunches through the end of the current school year for half a million Connecticut students, and to continue for another five years Connecticut’s tough budget safeguards that have allowed our state to build up its largest budget reserve ever while putting billions of dollars toward old, unfunded pension debt.
“Extending the free lunch program for our students not only allows those in need of a meal to continue to get one during the day but will also eliminate the stigma from students whose parents may make a certain amount of money,” said Sen. Gaston. “Providing free lunch at school eliminates the barrier from students who have parents that are high earners and students who have parents that are low earners. I hope in the future, lunch at school will always be provided to children at no cost.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government extended its free and reduced-price meals policy to all 50 million public school students nationwide – including those in Connecticut. But, like many federal grants tied to the pandemic, that funding was for a limited time only. The federal funding for free school meals for everyone expired on September 30, 2022, although last spring Democrats set aside $30 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and out it in the state budget to continue providing free school breakfast and lunch to Connecticut students through December 31, 2022.
Now, those funds have run dry. Today’s vote moves $60 million from the Invest CT program and into the Free Meals for Students program to provide free school meals through the end of the current school year, usually around mid-to-late June. Free meals will be provided to more than 500,000 students in all 169 towns.
The senator also voted today to continue the Democrat-led financial restraints that were first put in place in 2017.
Today’s bill will: