Relating to meals, food, and beverages provided to students enrolled in school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools, and including applicability provisions

Requester: Representative Heather Matson

Description

House File 212 prohibits a school from preparing breakfast or lunch programs with identified ingredients, prohibits an employee of a school from providing food or beverages during the school day that contain identified ingredients, and places limits on a school from selling beverages that contain identified ingredients. The Bill is applicable to school years beginning on or after July 1, 2027, and applies to school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools.

Background

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 authorized federal funding and established policy for USDA Child Nutrition Programs. The Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA administers school food programs at the federal level. State education agencies administer the programs at the state level, and local school food authorities operate the programs in schools. For the 2023-2024 school year, the Department of Education (DE) reported that 19.6 million school breakfast meals were served and 57.6 million school lunch meals were served to Iowa students.

The USDA reimburses schools for each meal they serve, with higher reimbursements for reduced-price and free meals. Participating schools must offer free or reduced-price meals to eligible students, and meals must meet USDA nutrition standards. Decisions about the specific foods to serve and how the foods are prepared are made by the local school food authorities. Meal reimbursement rates for the 2024-2025 school year are as follows:

• $2.37, Breakfast Free
• $2.07, Breakfast Reduced Price
• $0.39, Breakfast Paid
• $4.43, Lunch Free
• $4.03, Lunch Reduced Price
• $0.42, Lunch Paid

Additional funding is available for nutrition standards compliance and schools identified as severe need. Schools may also choose to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision that allows designated schools to serve meals at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications.

The DE also receives an estimated $23.0 million in federal funds that is used to purchase a portion of the foods used by schools within school meals. The DE is required to spend the money on specific food items procured by the USDA. State-specific ingredient restrictions would not be considered under the federal procurement process. If specific food items identified by the USDA contain the prohibited ingredients, the school would be responsible for identifying and purchasing alternatives that do not include the prohibited ingredients. Schools are required to competitively bid for the purchasing of food items in accordance with federal procurement guidelines. The bidding and selection process is completed in the spring for the following school year.

Two of the ingredients in the Bill have recently been banned by the Food and Drug Administration. Brominated vegetable oil was banned July 3, 2024, and Red Dye 3 was banned on January 15, 2025.

Assumptions

• School food service programs in Iowa are primarily federally funded under the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA.
• The DE currently receives a General Fund appropriation for School Food Service in the amount of $2.2 million annually to meet the federal funds maintenance of effort requirement. For FY 2024, the amount of federal funds received was $247.9 million, and for FY 2025, the estimated amount of federal funds that will be received is $238.8 million.
• School meal menus are specific to each school district and may contain the Bill’s prohibited ingredients.
• Schools maintain a food and nutrition fund supported with meal fees and federal funds. Schools charge a meal fee to offset the difference between USDA meal reimbursement rates and the cost of meals being provided.
• For reduced price meals, the meal fee charged by schools is typically the difference between the free reimbursement rate and the reduced-price reimbursement rate. For breakfast, this rate difference is $0.30, and for lunch, the rate difference is $0.40. Meals being provided for free are subject to the USDA reimbursement received, and additional funding is not provided through an additional charge by the school.
• An increase in the cost of school meals may be reflected in increased school meal fees for students not receiving free or reduced price meals, or increased costs may be absorbed by the school district.

Fiscal Impact

There is no expected fiscal impact for the State. However, school districts may have increased meal item costs to meet the requirements of the Bill. Because school districts are independent of each other, including school menus, food items, and supply resources, any increased costs would be specific to each individual school district and cannot be determined at this time.

Sources

• Department of Education
• Food and Drug Administration
• United States Department of Agriculture