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By Elizabeth Shockman, Minnesota Public Radio News

Flush with a huge projected state budget surplus, Gov. Tim Walz last spring signed a bill providing free breakfasts and lunches at schools across the state to any kid, regardless of family income.

He predicted the free meals would ease stress on parents and help reduce childhood poverty and “food insecurity” in Minnesota. Thousands of kids took him up on the offer.

Many schools this fall saw demand for meals jump. In Northfield Public Schools, student breakfast counts rose by nearly two-thirds from the prior year, with lunches up 20 percent. Roseville Area Schools saw similar numbers — 30 percent more kids eating lunch in the cafeteria and 50 percent more eating breakfast.

While state leaders have applauded that success, they recently acknowledged free meals will cost a lot more than initially budgeted — $81 million more over the next two years and $95 million in the two years after that.

With costs rising after a single semester and the state’s projected budget surplus falling significantly from last spring’s estimate, the debate’s begun on whether Minnesota — now the fourth state in the nation to offer universal free school meals — can afford its commitment.

“All the low-income students who need, and we want to provide (for and), make sure no one goes hungry, they were getting it through the (federal) free and reduced lunch program,” said state Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove.

The state’s move “gave free lunch to all the wealthy families,” she added. “That’s a place I think we need to look at. Is that really a priority?”

Officials are expected to provide more detail in the coming weeks about the students tapping the free breakfasts and lunches. A large-scale analysis of the program is all also expected.

In Roseville and Northfield, leaders say the increase appears to be a combination of low-income kids taking advantage of the program for the first time as well as students from higher-income families.

‘Made all the stigma go away’

If the surge in demand for free school meals surprised state budget makers, it did not surprise nonprofit leaders focused on reducing hunger in Minnesota who say Minnesota food shelves across the state are seeing historically high demand.

“We are still seeing tremendous food insecurity across the state,” said Leah Gardner, policy director for Hunger Solutions Minnesota, an organization that has championed a universal school meals program for several years.

“We’re seeing many families, including moderate income families and middle-class families, that are really grappling with our food budgets going up. So we know that the ability for kids to just go to school and have a nutritious breakfast and nutritious lunch every day, not having to worry about the cost of that, we know it’s a huge relief to families, and not just our lowest income families. Middle class families are feeling that relief.”

Gardner follows numbers from food shelves and is in touch with school nutrition directors. She said the free school meals are not just helping families across the economic spectrum save money, they are also an equalizer in the lunchroom.

“When meals were free temporarily during COVID, it changed the dynamic in the lunchroom. It made it feel like an equal playing field,” for kids, she said. “It made all the stigma go away,” Gardner said.

Walz reinforced that sentiment recently as he answered questions about the higher-than-predicted participation. He said he’d received a letter from a northern Minnesota mother of three in Grand Rapids who didn’t qualify for the free and reduced option but found the school meals too expensive to afford for her three kids.

“Now her children want to eat school meals. They get them and she said her morning is far less stressful, she’s not preparing and packing meals and she’s saving the money,” he said, adding that budgeting out new programs is always tricky. He called the free meals effort “an investment I will defend all day. I would like to see every student take us up on that.”

‘Focused on food’

In Northfield, the launch of a free school meals program has not been without hiccups. There was an early miscommunication about who and what the program covered, and there was an initial scramble to accommodate the 60 percent increase in students showing up for breakfast.

“That has probably created the most systems change for our district and probably for many others,” said Matt Hillmann, superintendent of the Northfield schools.

In Roseville, universal school meals means district nutrition staff are able to spend less time filling out paperwork and asking families to pay for meals they can’t afford.

“The purpose was never to chase lunch debt,” said Jenny Loeck, the Roseville superintendent. “We hire folks to make healthy food, serve healthy food for our students and so now it’s a replacement of time. We’re focused on food versus focused on paperwork.”

The infusion of money and popularity of the school meals program has also allowed Roseville to improve their overall nutrition program, officials said. The district’s supervisor of nutrition services, Angela Richey, said her team is upgrading kitchen equipment, training staff and planning to invest more in sourcing healthy ingredients from local farmers.

“Aside from the larger positive result of reducing stigma around school meals, increasing participation allows us to invest in great food, invest in the growth of our farm-to-school program, invest in staff training, that return to focus on scratch cooking, upgrading failing kitchen equipment,” Richey said. “This infusion of funds because of participation is just allowing us to better our program.”

Richey is one of the staff members who formerly spent time calling families, trying to chase down payments on school lunch debts. She doesn’t see the program as something only benefiting those who could already afford school meals.

“I was the person who would talk to the families who said, ‘Well, I’ve got this much medical debt. I just can’t afford to pay for meals.’ But based on their gross income they didn’t qualify for the federal program,” said Richey.

“I’m so happy I don’t have to have those conversations with families anymore,” Richey added. “This legislation has truly equaled the playing grounds for educational access in terms of being hungry in school.”