Three years ago, Colorado voters overwhelmingly said yes to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for free school meals for all.
Every eligible school district signed up for the program and students ate 25 million more school meals than the year before. But food prices continued to rise across the country and state officials quickly realized: The program needed a lot more money.
The rising price tag — $50 million above estimates in each of its first two years — puts the program, known as Healthy School Meals for All, at a crossroads.
Propositions LL and MM, on the ballot in November’s election, will determine the future of the universal school meals program.
Yes on both, and it continues on, with enough money to fulfill all its initial promises, advocates said. LL allows the state to keep and spend tax dollars collected above the projections approved with Proposition FF in 2022, while MM will expand the tax on high-income households to bolster the program.
Further, MM will also help fund the state’s share of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program following changes to federal eligibility requirements.
Healthy School Meals for All is funded by limiting write-offs that Coloradans making more than $300,000 per year can claim. LL would allow the state to keep about $12.4 million in taxes collected over initial expectations set in the 2022 measure.
MM would further limit the write-offs, from $16,000 now for joint filers at that income level to $2,000. It would, in effect, raise taxes on high-income Colorado taxpayers by an average of $535 a year, while leaving taxes for Coloradans making less than $300,000 per year alone. The tax increase would affect less than 6% of Colorado taxpayers.
If both fail, the Healthy School Meals for All Program will be pared back into a program that only gives universal school meals to low-income schools, and free meals to low-income students at wealthier schools — a system similar to what preceded it.
“Without LL and MM, hunger will rise sharply across our state,” said Anya Rose, director of public policy for Hunger Free Colorado, a key backer of the proposals. “We know kids were going hungry at school. We’ll go back to that method where many students are not accessing meals at school, either because their families can’t afford it or because they’re facing that fear of shame and stigma.”
In the 2023-2024 school year, the first with Healthy School Meals for All in place and the most recent data available, schools across the state reported serving 8 million more breakfasts than the year before and more than 16 million more lunches — respective increases of 37% and 30%, according to a state report.
Hungry Free Colorado estimates the program saved Colorado families $1,250 per child in school annually.
Emma Ansara, a mother of three in south Denver, hasn’t tallied her exact savings from the program, but the help has made her finances easier as three sons worked through school. And she’s appreciated not worrying about surprise over-budget bills when the school term ends and cafeteria bills come due, she said.
The free meals have also been a safety net as she juggles her sons’ schedules with her own as a Ph.D. student and nurse practitioner. Sometimes, lunch planning falls through as their morning schedules dance around each other.
But the other kids in their classrooms, and the feeling of support from the community voting in Healthy School Meals, are where she sees the program really shining. Every kid being sure of a meal at school, including hers, helps make a better learning environment for everyone, she said.
“We have a lot of families in Colorado who are food insecure,” Ansara said. “This seems like a really thoughtful and planful way to meet kids where they are. Them having access to food throughout the school day really shows up in a lot of ways, both in their physical health and their learning.”
She added, “Learning is a communal process.”
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LL and MM have scant formal opposition
Taxpayers for a Better Deal, an issue committee linked with the conservative think tank Independence Institute, registered in opposition to the measures, though it reported having raised and spent zero dollars for the effort as of Sept. 30, the most recent filing period.
In a statement opposing the measures, the organization referred to Healthy School Meals for All as a “failed experiment,” blasted it as “financially unsound” and called it a case of “classic bracket creep” because inflation will drive more families into the tax bracket that pays for the program.
Jon Caldara, the institute’s president, reiterated the argument that led the opposition toward Proposition FF in 2022. Yes, lower-income folks should get free meals. But kids whose families can afford school lunch shouldn’t have taxpayers foot the bill.
“Why are we taxing wealthy people to buy free lunches for the kids of just slightly less wealthy people,” Caldera said in a statement. “Of course, children of poorer families should get a free lunch. But buying lunch for those who can afford it isn’t charity. It’s theft.”
Supporters of the measure formed Keep Kids Fed Colorado. That committee, which is linked to Hunger Free Colorado, has reported raising $683,000 to support the measure.
The program’s funding source does look to those who can most afford the higher tax rate, said Rose, with Hunger Free Colorado. But she noted that even those high-income families will reap savings if they have any kids in public schools.
“This is a time when folks are facing an affordability crunch, but that’s why it’s really important there’s an equitable mechanism here,” Rose said.
‘Kids need these meals’
Shannon Thompson, public policy and legislative chair for the Colorado School Nutrition Association, said the extra money will also help keep school meals healthy and made from scratch. Cutting back would mean a heavier reliance on heat-and-serve meals and other prepared foods.
The program aims to use more locally grown foods — a goal that’s been stifled by the lack of available money. Having funds to pay for more staff and better training in the state’s “biggest restaurant chain” will mean better, healthier meals.
Thompson also shot down complaints that the program has led to more food waste because students aren’t paying for the meals. Instead, it’s long lines and short lunch periods that have kids dumping uneaten food. They simply don’t have time, she said.
That finding was echoed by the legislative report after the program’s inaugural year and, supporters say, a product of the program’s success in drawing in kids.
“Right now, the original Proposition FF was so successful it cost the state of Colorado more than was anticipated. That success was really important to show that kids need these meals,” Thompson said. “…If Proposition LL and MM don’t pass, it’s going to reduce that equitable playing field that we’ve made over the past couple of years for students.”
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