 So, good morning folks. This is the Senate Agricultural Committee and Friday, January 26th. We have on the agenda this morning, Rosie Kruger and Hannah Annara Horton. We're going to get a report from our, in regards to our meals program in the school. We also have with us several people from the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative who is all virtual today this morning. 9 and 12, 10, 30. We have a few people that will be meeting at Canada when we finish with Annara and Rosie that may have some questions for us in regards to whatever. So, we'll, I guess we'll start off with you Rosie, we'll introduce ourselves and then we'll get a report from General Alex going federal program, how that's working out. Alex working out a good or bad for our children and we'll go from there. Brian, yeah, Brian Colomar representing the Ruffin District, Brian Campion Bennington District, Rich Westman, Loyal District. And I'm Bobby Starr from Orlean's District and Irene Ranna is from the Milton, Sir Burlington, Chittenden North District and she'll be, she's meeting with some students from, I believe, St. Albans School right now. That she'll be joining us in a few minutes. So anyway, welcome Rosie and good to have you with us and and we'll turn it over to you. Good to see you all. For the record, I'm Rosie Krueger. I'm the State Director of Child Nutrition Programs at the Agency of Education. So I thought I would start today by telling you about how the Universal School Meals Act implementation is going. Senator Campion has heard this a little bit already I was in Senate education. A couple weeks ago, speaking about that. So a little, a little bit of a repeat for him but we'll start there. And then I can tell you about some recent updates from USDA that have impacted that implementation in a positive way. I have a lot of good news for you today. And then from there, I'm happy to answer whatever questions you have. We could talk a little bit about the local foods incentive as well and how that's going. So that's what I plan to talk about today. But I know you generally just wanted to hear about school food programs. So I'm also happy to answer any general questions that you've got. You can emphasize and expand the good side of things. We get a lot of bad news. Any good news is very welcome. Yeah, so I can tell you, you know, you all were very deliberate in Act 64, and in its predecessor, the one year pilot bill on Universal Meals. And you really worked with us closely on getting the details of both those bills right. And I just want to say that I really appreciate that, because that means that this year's implementation of the permanent Universal School Meals legislation has gone really smoothly. And so by doing it in kind of a slow, deliberate fashion with a one year pilot where we were able to see how it was going and come back to you with some suggestions for technical changes that would make things run more smoothly. And then, you know, you all listening to that feedback and making those changes. The actual implementation this year has gone extremely smoothly. And so really happy to be able to report that back to you. And I will say that I am on an email chain with some state directors and other states that have been implementing these policies where their legislatures kind of looked at the big picture but didn't necessarily work with them directly on the details and things are not going as smoothly in those states. So just want to give you all some good feedback for taking that really deliberative approach on that implementation. So overall, participation in the School Meals programs is up slightly this year from last year. As you remember last year was that pilot year of Universal Meals, but we were still dealing with a lot of school closures that fall due to COVID and other respiratory illnesses. So we weren't sure how that was going to impact, you know, participation on an ongoing rate. So our participation rates are up by a couple percentage points this year. You know, I think we'll keep an eye on that over the next several years and see if we have a general upward trend or if you know this year is sort of a leveling out year and we've gotten to where we're going to be. So our final costs for school year 2223 were a little bit lower or were quite a bit lower than we had appropriated or you had appropriated. You had appropriated $29 million originally, and that was based on kind of a midpoint in our conservative estimates about what would happen if no children, no households returned school meals applications and all students started participating or you know what if the same number on the low end what if the same number of children participated as previously and the same number of households returned as had previously when meals were being charged for. And what we found was that some families returned applications last year, not as many as when meals are being charged for but we did still have some folks returning applications. And that was in part because we did a really big statewide push to get folks to return applications last year. So that helped bring the costs down. And then we found the participation went up some last year. As of this year. I think this school year 2324 we're seeing like a 25% increase over where we were in school year 2019 when we were last charging for meals. So, there's definitely been an increase but it's not every child eating every day. So, 25% over the year 19 over school year night to October 2019. If you compare, compare that I want to I'm still kind of refining some numbers there before I give you that estimate officially but that's that's kind of approximately what we're seeing. So a significant increase for sure. But we're not seeing every child eat every day, which we thought was possible you know the meals are free, you know, if the policy worked super well, we might see see a huge increase in participation. I think we've seen a significant increase, but it's not. There are still a lot of students who are, you know, bringing a meal from home and that kind of thing, which is, which is fine, we just weren't sure what number to pick in there. The other reason that costs were a little lower last year than anticipated is that when we did our mid year estimates for you in January. We didn't yet have numbers. So in January last year we said it might cost about 27 million instead of 29 million. And in fact our numbers came in. The final cost was about 24.5 million for the meals we served last year. And a lot of that was due to free and reduced students continuing to participate at a higher rate than paid students. We weren't sure what was going to happen and so we assumed that all students in all categories would participate in the same rate, but in actuality free and reduced students participated at a higher rate which allowed those costs to come down even more. So, yeah. What happens to that 5.5 million in between what we appropriated and what it actually costs? Yeah, so I've just been talking with some folks just this week to try and figure out the answer to that and it sounds like we do need to do a reversion of those funds. So we'll be working on that to do that formally for you all so that those can be incorporated back into the Education Fund. By the looks of things that we've got that'll be good. Yeah, that'll certainly be helpful. And then when we look at school year 2324, we had estimated this fall that we might come in at 26.5 million for this year. At this point, our estimates are actually even lower than that. And I think we'll be presenting a new estimate either later today or or early next week to potentially be included in the budget adjustment act. The reason that costs are lower this year. It then the original estimates is because of a bunch of changes made at the federal level. So I'm going to start talking about those, because those are really good news for Vermont. Going forward, and I've already had some really positive impacts for this year. Overall, you might remember us talking last year about how the Agency of Education and the Department of Vermont Health Access had applied to participate in USDA's direct certification through Medicaid pilot. And we were approved to participate in that. And over the last year worked really hard to get that set up and started actually sharing that information with schools in August. So that means that we're able to get the information about all the kids participating, all the kids who live in households participating in Medicaid who have a household income under 130% of the federal poverty level and under 185% of the federal poverty level. And that allows us to give that information to the schools and the schools to directly certify those children for free and reduced price meals without having to get applications from families. And because we have a really high Medicaid uptake in Vermont, that program has been extremely successful. We were making a few predictions about that last year for you. And we've seen that those, those hopeful predictions have come true. And so it looks like we're, we're basically effectively able to replace all of those applications that we used to get with direct cert through Medicaid information. So we didn't make a big push on households to return applications this year, because we had all that Medicaid data, and we really didn't need them to return the applications, nearly as much as we had in the past. How long Rosie, well that those things hold, is this an annual thing or five years? Basically a permanent pilot. So once we're in, we're able to just continue using it. USDA, it's not a nationwide thing states have to apply to participate in it. So not all states participate in it. But now that we're in, you know, it's basically good until, until Congress or USDA changes anything at the federal level but it's not anticipated that they would. That's good. Yeah. We've got that whole process set up so we're sharing that information with schools on a monthly basis. One thing that does make this year better in terms of having higher numbers of students directly certified through Medicaid is that the information was shared starting in August and once a child becomes directly certified. They're directly certified through the entire school year. And I know that diva was expecting to see over the course of this year as they had to start doing verification for Medicaid. They were expecting to see some households start dropping off of that. And so our numbers may be higher this year than they are next year. But that is mitigated by the fact that we're able to use those numbers from this year to get schools participating in the community eligibility provision and that once you're in a CEP cycle, that is good for four years. So it's possible five years from now, our Medicaid direct cert rates will be a little bit lower because maybe fewer families will be participating in Medicaid at those, at those income levels in, in that year and that might cause things to be, our numbers to be a little bit lower but that's looking so far out at this point that I'm not sure we could really make a prediction about that. So for the, for the next several years, we'll be able to use these really advantageous numbers from this year. And that is in part because USDA also made a federal rule change regarding the community eligibility provision. So you might remember that this is one of the two universal meals options that are available. One is the community eligibility provision and the other is provision two. And the community eligibility provision is the more advantageous option. That's when you take the number of students who are directly certified, and you multiply that by 1.6, and that gives you your free claiming rate, and then the rest of the meals are claimed at the paid rate. There's less paperwork in this option and that 1.6 multiplier generally means it is more advantageous to the school and that we're drawing down more federal money than we would be if it was just based on applications. And as it is in provision to If you have any student count numbers, are we feeding 60% or 85% or. Yeah, I was just working on that earlier today and I don't actually have it's more in the 60% range for for lunch. I didn't finish out that calculation, but I can certainly send send that information when I finish making that calculation I expect to do that later today. No, or toss, you know, Brian, I keep saying I can't be on course here in this committee, so we spend a little time together every day to kind of keep track of that. Yeah, so you're talking about the number of students eating what we also have is the number of students who qualify for free and reduced price meals. Both both important metrics. So happy to give you both of those. I am going to talk now about this number of students qualifying for free and reduced price meals because that has changed as a result of this CEP rule change. So previously, USDA only allowed schools to participate in CEP, if at least 40% of their students were directly certified for free and reduced price meals. So direct certification is when we find out that a child is not is eligible for free and reduced price meals from a source other than an application. So it used to be mostly SNAP information three squares or amount or TANF reach up information that would directly certify students and then we had a couple other categories like state place foster students, homeless, migrant run away and head start. So we only look at that, and then previously, if if a school had 40% or more of their students in that category in those categories, then they could qualify for CEP and use that multiplier in late September, USDA issued their final rule, lowering that threshold for participation in CEP from 40% to 25%. And so that meant that many, many more of our Vermont schools are eligible to participate in CEP. Normally, that wouldn't have gone into effect until next school year, because of the normal timeframes for CEP. But we applied for a waiver and USDA approved that waiver to do mid year implementation of CEP using that that rule change. Initially, we started doing that using the information from last April, which is what USDA initially told us we needed to do that's that's normally CEP is normally based on April information. And that of course was from before we started doing the direct certification through Medicaid pilots. So we did have many more schools who are eligible, but they weren't able to use all of the new information about the Medicaid direct cert students. So using that, we had about 104 newly eligible, I'm sorry, 73 schools who are newly eligible to participate in CEP this fall. So we validated those schools got them all set up. And then in late November, USDA let us know that actually they had the flexibility to allow us to use the new data the September data from this year, which included all that new direct certification data. So using that information we went through and validated, and we're still in the process of validating schools using September data and that allowed a bunch more schools to qualify. So far, that rule change means that we have 109 newly eligible schools for CEP that have started CEP this year. So 228 of our schools are about two thirds of our schools more than two thirds of our schools are using CEP this year, as a result of that mid year implementation. So that of course means that all those schools are able to use that 1.6 multiplier. And that combined with the Medicaid direct cert pilot and all that new information means that our statewide free and reduced percentage is much higher than it was previously. So, before, before COVID when we were, you know, charging for meals we had a statewide free and reduced percentage around like 38, 39%. And then, last year, when we started universal meals and fewer families returned applications, we had a free and reduced percentage around 34%. So that meant generally that the federal government was paying for about 34% of the meals. But then the rate remainder are being paid for by state funds. And after this, this big rule change. We're actually seeing that our statewide free and reduced percentage in December after, after we've validated everybody will be above 50%. So that means that more than 50% of the meals will be paid for by the federal government completely. So that is amazing news. The feds pay more, right? If you have a free meal or free or reduced meal, it's more than if you just walk in and have to pay for your meal. Is that correct? Yeah, so the feds actually provide some reimbursement for each type of meal. There is a, they basically fully, they pay the full, what's called the full free reimbursement rate for the free meals. For the pay for the reduced price meals, they pay that amount minus 40 cents for lunch and 30 cents for breakfast, which the state has long paid for out of general fund. And actually one of the things that we're seeing is that in CEP schools, there's no reduced price category because the meals are either free or paid. So because more than two thirds of our schools are now going to be CEP, that state appropriation is going to be able to be lowered for the reduced price. For the reduced price meals, there'll be just far fewer reduced price meals. So we will come back to you with a revision on that in future budget asks. And then for the paid meals, the federal government does subsidize those meals a little bit, but that is where most of the state money is coming from. In a pricing program, the family would pay for the remainder of that meal, but under the Universal Meals Law, the state pays for that. So having a higher free and reduced percentage is only a good thing when it comes to the amount of state money that we're putting towards this program. So we're working on a revised estimate. Again, we're still validating all those CEP schools that we just got the information on in December. But we're working on a revised estimate for you all of what this year will be. And estimating that it'll be significantly lower than the 26.5 million that we had previously estimated for this year. And then going forward next year, expecting the same thing because all the schools that are currently participating in CEP this year, they will have the option of either continuing on with that cycle at the existing rate that they're currently at. Or if their numbers in April are better next year, they'll be able to start a new cycle with those better numbers. So for the next few years, it really can only get better. The one thing that will potentially tick costs up a little bit next year. We can't just take the per meal rate from this year and multiply it all out is that USDA does update the per meal reimbursement rates every single year based on some inflation factors. And we're not sure yet what the reimbursement rates will be next year. And the state universal meal supplement is tied to the difference between the federal and the state. Sorry, the federal free and the federal paid reimbursement rate. And so we saw quite a big jump in that difference from last year to this year because of inflation factors. And it's possible we'll see another big increase there this year we're still working on those estimates. So that's the one thing that could make things cost a little bit more than anticipated, but it's still I don't think will exceed exceed our initial estimates or even the the 26.5 that we've got in there as a placeholder for next year. So that's all good news in terms of cost to the state. One of the things about all of that is that a higher free and reduced percentage makes more schools eligible for something called area eligibility. So when you take the percentage of students who are directly certified and you multiply it by 1.6 that gets you your free claiming percentage. If that exceeds 50%. And that means that during the summer time that school and any locations in the attendance area of that school can qualify to operate open meal sites. And that means that any children 18 and under can come and get a meal for free at that that open summer meal site. Based on all these changes we're thinking that we're going to have at least 87 schools who are newly eligible to be area eligible next year for next summer. And so that just means many, many more locations in the state that will be able to offer free meals to all children during the summer months. So that's very exciting. A lot of schools want to offer free summer meals in the summer, but they haven't previously qualified as area eligible. So they've had to do things like, you know, only offer the meals to a certain group of kids at a at a summer camp or that kind of thing. And so now they'll be able to be open meal sites. And that just quickly by closing that's a Monday through Friday situation right or are not necessarily it can operate on the weekends. And we do have some sites that operate on the weekends in the summer. How many schools are qualified. So we'll have 87 additional schools qualifying from from our previous numbers. I don't have the previous numbers off hand, but it's, you know, you only have 300 some odd schools so that's obviously a significant increase. We'll have increased area eligibility in the summer. And that combines with another recent federal change, which was actually in place last summer and we did use it last summer but we'll be able to really take advantage of the increased area eligibility and use that more this summer. And that is the USDA change to allow for non congregate summer meals in rural areas and under USDA definitions, most of Vermont qualifies as a rural area. The exceptions being most of Chittenden County and parts of Franklin and Grand Isle counties. So in most of the state, we're able to offer open meal sites where children can come eat on site and pick up meals. But then we can also offer these non congregate meals where children can come and take meals home with them. Or we can do delivery of meals on a bus route or to mobile meal stops. And that also allows us to offer multiple days worth of meals at one time. So a family could come and pick up, you know, five days worth of meals, depending on how that meal site is working. And that can be breakfast and lunch. So, and then it can also be it can be a kind of a unitized meal so you know your your sandwich your milk your fruit kind of as a meal, or it can be what's called bulk meals where instead of giving you pre made sandwiches. We give you a loaf of bread and a whole bunch of sliced cheese and a gallon of milk, and the, you know, a bag of apples or whatever our fruit option is. You know, to meet the meal pattern, but rather than than making unitized meals. So those are all options we have now that we didn't have previously. And because of the increase in area eligibility there's just a lot more locations in the state or we'll be able to offer that. Now, all of that is. How does that word get out about like the summer meals program is you work with an orange. How does that word get out to the school district and hot lunch program. Yeah, well we certainly work with hunger free Vermont on that they they keep a really nice part of their website that shows that information. We also share that information with USDA, and they put that into a national mapping website called the meal finder. So families can go to that address and or that that website and type in their address and find the closest summer meal sites. And those could be, you know, in New Hampshire or New York, you know, folks on border counties can cross into other states. The summer meals program is really wonderfully flexible where at open meal sites it's any kid 18 and under. And it doesn't really matter where you live to access those sites. We use the meal finder we give the information to 211 so families can call 211. And then at the end of the school year schools are also required to share out the information about meal sites that they know about in their area, or at the very least, share out the USDA meal finder information for families. And then we also do things like you know there's posters and signage that sites will put up in their communities to direct families. Certainly, you know, we want you all to know about it. If you're hearing from constituents over the summer months who are having difficulty with food, the summer meal sites are a great, a great place for kids to access food during the summer. So the other piece on that that that we might need your help with is that in order to operate these summer meal sites, we need community partners. So, all these sites are now going to be eligible to operate open summer meal sites, but that's, that's only good if someone locally decides, yeah, we're going to go ahead and operate a site. And so often that's a school district. They're usually the best set up already. They're already set up with us to receive those funds and apply more streamlined more easily. And they obviously already have facilities and staff, but it also can be community partners. So the summer meal sites can be operated by nonprofit organizations by local governments. We like to see sites anywhere that kids congregate in the summer. So libraries pools, you know, rec departments, all those are great places to operate open summer meal sites. So if you're hearing from folks in your community who want to know what they can do, please send them our way. We would really like to talk to local community partners about opening up additional meal sites in their communities, especially because we have this ability now with these additional area eligible sites. That's great. Yeah. The other piece of area eligibility is that that also allows us all those additional schools that are now area eligible are also allowed to offer free free meals to all are free after school snacks to all students through the after school snack program, or they can also participate in the at risk after school meals program through the child and adult care food program to offer after school suppers. So that is another area for growth in our state now, we have all these additional locations that are eligible. So we will be, you know, reaching out to all the schools that are now newly eligible and asking if they're interested in starting these programs. But if you, especially if you have an existing after school activity program. This is a really good, a good program to take advantage of so you know the kids are there after school doing activities but then they can also get a snack or potentially a supper. If if that program works in combination with the child nutrition programs. So that's something that we're hoping to see grow over the next year as well, because we have this additional eligibility. So that is kind of the overview of all those new rule changes and how they're impacting things. I did want to talk to you about just a little bit of additional. Some changes we're seeing as a result of the universal meals law. You did have a bunch of discussion last year about how to handle independent schools. We came back to you looking for some clarity on that. And you decided specifically that for. So, so the pilot year law said that independent schools. You would only provide the universal meal supplement, if they offered free meals to all students and you would only provide the supplement for children who are publicly tuition. And we asked you last year for clarity on how you wanted us to handle independent schools that were sites under public school school food authorities. And we have a number of these around the state where you know there's a small independent school. And they're the, the public school district in their area kind of takes that site under their wing and offers the school meals program at that site. And that takes responsibility for it. And that is allowed in the federal programs and it's something that we encourage because it's just more efficient administratively. And so you clarified for us that we should treat those independent schools exactly the same as independent schools who are their own school food authority. And so, we had two independent schools that had previously been operating under public school school food authorities, St. Michael School and Brattleboro had been operating under wind of northeast supervisor union, and Christ the king and Rutland had been operating under Rutland City School District. And after that change, the meals at those schools would only be reimbursed for the publicly tuition students. And so very few of those school of those meals would be reimbursed with the state funds. And so, as a result of that, those schools have since left the program. They're no longer part of those public school school food authorities. Our understanding was that they intended to come on as their own school food authority. They've started to work through the paperwork on that but they haven't finished it. And so at this point in the year they're not participating in the programs at all. So it's obviously a concern for us whenever we lose anybody participating in the program, and just wanted to flag that for you all that that was something that happened as a result of that clarification. So I am have the thanks, Mr. Chair, thanks for this Rosie. So, can you look back to those schools or somebody in just touch base with them. I know you expressed, you know, concern that they dropped out of the program and they may be working on a different application is there a way to look back and see if they need help. Yeah, we, we have, we definitely have have reached out a number of times and said, you know, do you need help are you working on it, you know. Thank you. I'm not surprised that you've done that. Thank you very much. It seems to be a little bit of a staffing capacity issue, you know previously the public school school food authorities conducted all the administration of the program. And there's not. I think they're they're probably struggling a little bit with having the administrative capacity to take this on on their own. Which is not particularly surprising. It's a lot to administer as a single building. So, but we are continuing to reach out. We've been trying to encourage the Catholic schools in general to group together as one school food authority, which we think would be more administratively efficient and is certainly allowable under the programs. It may, it tends to go there in the future, but it's just been kind of slow to get that transition going. Those children get hungry just like all children so it would be good to get those that straightened out. So they can provide meals such for sure. And that's really a policy decision on your end, you know you you made the policy decision last year that you only wanted to provide that supplement for the publicly tuition students. The religious schools in general have fewer publicly tuition students than other independent schools. So, for example, conversation. Yeah, I can't be taken a blame for messing with them. So, we'll straighten him out. Other independent schools for example the academies are all participating and they have lots of publicly tuition students. And so it is much more efficient for them they have some students who aren't publicly tuition but in general those are students who are paying tuition, or, you know, able to pay tuition, and so they're able to incorporate the meal charge into that tuition charge. And I will say that in general we have had some interest from other independent schools in joining the program. So folks who have more publicly tuition students are now interested in this program. So it's not. I just lost my video here. Sorry. I don't know where my video went but I can keep talking here. It's not that you can start it again my apologies. That's okay. So it's not that this is something that is universally true for independent schools it just depends on how many publicly tuition students they have. And again there has been some interest from independent schools that weren't previously participating in the program in starting because of this. I think the last thing I would just tell you is that I also worked on as part of the state's emergency response to the flooding this summer as part of the state emergency operation center on mass feeding efforts and making sure that folks who were impacted by the flooding had access to meals especially because you know folks who are displaced from their homes and folks who had their kitchens damaged or you know grocery store access disrupted. And that was a very stressful couple months trying to make sure that we had resources available for folks. I really breathed a sigh of relief once school started in the fall because I knew that that was one group of folks that we no longer needed to worry as much about that that kids had access to two maybe three meals a day but at least two meals a day. And that was one of the things that I was surprised at their schools and that you know we still needed to do a lot of work to ensure that their families had places to access the other meals. But that was kind of a surprising consequence of this that I just wanted to flag for you all that just it was an additional safety net that I didn't didn't quite realize we had until school started and we were able to implement that. As far as an update for you about how the universal meals policy is going. What other questions do you have on that. Yeah. A question from Richard. No that was terrific. Even sounded better the second time. No, no, no, it's not here. We'll have it back again next week. So you run us off. I did want to flag for you as well. We did. I wanted to submit the annual local foods incentive report to you all a week or two ago. And that is our annual report on how the local foods incentive grant that was really came out of this committee. How that's going and what schools have gotten funds for that. I wasn't planning to talk a lot about that today, but I did want to just flag it for you all. It's a very thorough report. There's some suggestions in there for things that you might do to to make schools more successful in their local purchasing. So definitely take a look at that if you haven't seen it. Yeah. Any questions from. Well, Rosie, you know, we did our work over here, but you are the ones that implemented it and at the agency and, and, you know, you should be congratulated on taking a mess of stuff from us and making it all work. Because, you know, and it goes to show it to if you work together in a good way, you can, you can really do good things for for the people. So thanks a lot for all your hard work and we certainly appreciate it. Of course, thank you. So, would you like to comment on how your perspective of the school meals for them because you've been dogging this for years. Finally, very true. Finally, yeah. Thank you all for having me. I'm a Nora Orton, and I'm the executive director of Humphrey Vermont and the resident of Wilson. And thank you for having me here to join Rosie and talking about the success of at 64 months permanent universal school meals program, which this committee has also been dogging for many, many years. Right along with me. So, this success is really your success and on behalf of all the families in Vermont. I think for that. So, you heard from Rosie, the data, the numbers. So, I'm not going to go over that again. I would like to say also that the agency of education Rosie's team, the child nutrition programs department there has done an extraordinary job of thinking through what needed to be in at 64 and working with all of you to make sure that those key components were in there. Rosie mentioned this, but I don't think she quite blew her own and up and the agency's own born and up. Vermont's implementation of permanent universal school meals is the best implementation our law is the best law of any of the ones that have been passed any of the eight that have been passed nationally and it's because of the care and thought and collaboration that went into it and the agency of education has done a phenomenal job of implementing. You want to say in that just because you're from Vermont. No, it's really true. And I'm proud to be from Vermont especially been talking about 64. So, so I'm not going to tell you I'm not going to give you any more numbers. What I would like to do instead is share with you the experiences of the people on the ground in our schools who are implementing this. Universal school meals program every day with the students. So I asked some folks who some of whom came and testified before you all last year from our school nutrition programs and our education programs to share with me some words that they would like you to hear. And that is what I'm going to share with you as my testimony. So I hope that as you listen to these words that you are hearing them as a profound expression of gratitude to this committee for all of your hard work over three sessions plus a whole lot of other stuff before that to pass this game changing law for students families and schools. Universal meals in Vermont has helped so many families. This program has not only improved access to nutrition for children, but also help to ensure that families can allocate funds to other important expenses such as housing and healthcare. Universal school meals has created a more inclusive and supportive environment where children feel accepted and can focus on their education without worrying about where their next meal will come from. By giving our students access to healthy and satisfying breakfast and lunch options, we can set them up for success in the classroom. My family has certainly benefited from the program and I know many folks in our community feel the same way and that is from Kelly White, a site coordinator at Essex Westburn School District. From Stephanie Gates, the food service director for Bennington Rutland Supervisor Union, the students' expressions of gratitude serve a validation for the effort invested in enacting universal school meals into legislation. Universal school meals have promoted inclusivity among students, alleviated financial worries about school meals for families, and delivered substantial advantages to our community. From Carol Kent, the food services director for LaMoyle North Supervisor Union, universal school meals has changed the culture of school meals at LaMoyle North SU. In our middle and high school, meal times are far less stressful for students. They come through our lines with healthy, delicious food choices. They interact with our cashiers with friendliness, lively banter, and gratitude, where in the past there had been some trepidation, fear, and shame. My 40-year-old daughter was at a gathering with other moms and the talk was all about how great it was that they do not have to rush their kids in the morning to get breakfast into them, knowing that they can have breakfast with their friends at school. For families, it has relieved some stress from the morning rush. It is a joy every day to see children just enjoying meal times together, regardless of income levels. They all have the same choices. And Scott Faye, food services director for Essex Westford. With Vermont's universal school meals program, schools are able to focus on producing quality meals and providing excellent service to students. Cash collection and the process of collecting on bad debt associated with paid meal programs has historically put wedges between schools and families in need of support. With universal school meals, we don't create barriers between families and need and schools. We build bridges. And Harley Sterling, nutrition director for Wyndham North East Supervisor Union. Universal school meals has helped make our cafeteria a place where students feel safe and welcome. They come to school every day knowing their basic needs will be taken care of. For our younger students, they live in a world that has never shamed and stigmatized them for not having lunch money. Some of the most sincere gratitude comes from our teachers and staff who see the sea change in school culture. As a border community, many of our teachers live in New Hampshire and send their children to schools without universal school meals. For them, the contrast could not be more stark. Not only is universal school meals money back in the pockets of Vermont working families who no longer have to pack meals or worry about lunch money. Their kids get to go to schools where meals are enjoyed by everyone who wants them stress-free. Yeah, I don't know about the other committee members we have chatted about, but I attend quite a few meetings in the off session. And I don't think I didn't know one meeting in the last year or two that somebody somewhere sometime during that meeting has mentioned how supportive they are of what we did in regards to universal school meals. I haven't had one person say anything bad about it either, which is, you know, the ordinary conversation is, you know, what are you crazy doing in Montpelier? Yeah, I don't get that really too long, but, you know, it was a good piece of legislation and, you know, with the help of view folks in the agency, we all work together very well. And we got good votes for it here in the legislature, and, you know, it's gone very well. And those numbers that we got this morning from Rosie, you know, I would expect, I mean, Washington is Washington, but it won't be too many years. But they'll just pay the bill, you know, they'll have a free meals program nationwide. And, you know, I've always said if you take care of your children and your elders, you know, the middle will be fine. So it's worth good. Anything else? Well, I would also just like to underscore the incredible opportunity that the design of Act 64 is now going to provide to expand free summer and after school meals. So, and have a free Vermont, we maintain that, you know, updated locations of every single summer meal site in the state on our website. As Rosie said, but we also will be actively, we raise private funding to do paid advertising to let people know about summer meal sites. So we're going to be doing a really big push in collaboration with the agency of education this summer and with the expanded after school programming funding that is now available. That is also going to bring many more children into after school and summer programming, which is very, very important. We have to make sure that while those kids are in that programming, they are being well fed. And so this expanded opportunity to add federally paid for after school and summer meals is really a critical piece to the success of making sure that more kids have access to after school and summer program. So we're working closely with Vermont after school as well on making sure that those those two things meals and programming is are going to go together. And we have so much more opportunity now to make that happen. And the other part of this whole discussion is, you know, local foods and getting those into the schools and, you know, find a plate and find the school on issues we we haven't gotten a report yet in regards to how that's helping our farmers to have an outlet for their food to get our children. And that's very important. You know, we have fresh, awesome food grown right here at home that hasn't had to sit in a cooler for months in order to light a cross country on a truck or train. So that that's the other important side of the all discussion. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, when when this committee drafted a kind of put together that first bill. It was universal school meals, the local food purchasing incentive and increased funding for the farm to school and early childhood grants program. And even though the bill got split up, and all those those three things travel differently. This legislature passed all three of those and funded all three of those components and our vision was always farm fresh school meals for all right and and we have we have pieces in place to make that happen. And I think the local food purchasing incentive report is hopeful and identifies also, you know, I mean, we've had the pandemic, the flooding, there have been some real challenges to our local food producers. But that, but those components are going to keep working together, I believe, over time to really grow the ability of schools to buy and produce more local food. And, you know, just a couple days ago, I was in here with some other folks presenting the Vermont food security roadmap to you all. And, you know, this legislation acts before me this is exactly the kind of legislation that we're talking about that is going to make it possible for us to have food security by 2035. And not just any kind of food security, but homegrown Vermont grown food security with an agricultural system that's climate resilient and where there are local outlets for farmers to sell their produce and schools are biggest restaurants in every one of our towns. So we should never forget that. Thanks, Senator. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, we talk about impacts on, you know, trying to play our role to reduce carbon. You know, if you've got truck going a mile, rather than 100 miles to bring fresh fruits or vegetables or 1000 or whatever. That's, that's a big change. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I love that part of the building. Everything works to the advantage of things that we've been working on for years. Yeah, it is a very good community. You know, it will stay better if you have less traffic. It's a good track there. So, no, it's been a long. How many years have you been on this? 10 years? Wow, that's incredible. I think, I think when that happens, you appreciate it more to him. Yeah, it's easy to ram a bill through. I've always found it fairly easy to ram a bill through, but this thing, I mean, we've worked on it and worked on it and it, you know, you really appreciate the accomplishment more. Because that's been a long haul. And, but, you know, if you can feed these children and, and, you know, these private schools, there's only a hand in why shouldn't those little kids eat right along with the rest of the kids and we'll, we'll try to get that straightened out. You know, some people get all torqued up. Well, it's probably the school and they're paying to send the kids they have bills for to feed them. You know, well, I don't care if they know for it or not, those, those people are paying their taxes right along with everyone else and those children should be able to have three meals with the rest of the children. We'll get that right, right? Well, you've got that seat down the hall, which always helps. Well, Richie's right here. Yeah, two out of seven is a bad place to stay. Yeah. So any other comments? Sure. Well done. Well done. Well done, all of you. So thank you so much. Thank you. Colleagues, look at that clock. I can't believe we're on time. It's unusual. So we have a group of people with us from the Northeast Kingdom collaborative this morning, and they're going to be with us for more than a half hour or so, I hope. And it would squeeze our break. And I'd like to welcome each of you who are meeting this morning. This is the Senate Agricultural Committee. And some of you have been listening to probably to what we heard this morning. And so we'll, I don't know if you heard, got to hear early enough to get the introductions, but we'll quickly introduce ourselves and then we'll have you folks introduce yourself. And we'll see what you've got for questions and concerns and we'll go from there. It's great to have you with us, Brian. Yep, Brian Collin, we're representing the Rutland Districts. Hi, Raine Renner, North Wichita Police, Purpose. We're our champion, Fennington District. Rich West with the William District. And I'm Bobby Starr representing Orleans County and four towns in Caledonia County. So welcome and if you folks would like to introduce yourselves, we'll get started. Sure. I'm Jenna O'Farrell, Executive Director of Northeast Kingdom Community Action. Hi, I'm Cheryl McFaddy. I'm the principal in Lunarburg School. I'm Catherine Cusack, the Executive Director of Green Mountain Farm to School based out in Newport. I'm Tanika Stewart. I'm the Child Nutrition Director for Caledonia Central Supervisor at Union. Well, welcome folks and I don't know if any order, we don't have any order down here. So there isn't any official order for you folks to jump in, but if one of you wants to lead off, we'd be glad to hear from them. I can start. That's okay with the team here. All right. Well, thank you, Senator Starr for inviting us this morning and all the work that the committee has done. It's amazing. I'm, as I said, Jenna O'Farrell, I live in St. John'sbury and for five and a half years I've been the Executive Director of Northeast Kingdom Community Action, which serves Caledonia Orleans and Essex County. And I really appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about Vermont School meals. And I don't know how much I'm sure you know about community action in all of your counties in the Northeast Kingdom. We are the leading organization addressing poverty through education, community collaborations and essential services. Our services include food insecurity, financial wellbeing, homelessness, warmth, early education, restorative justice, community reintegration and employment. With the pandemic and local disasters such as the July flooding, we increase critical support and services to the most vulnerable Vermonters. In the Northeast Kingdom, we operate four emergency food pantries, Newport, Canaan, Island Pond and St. John'sbury, two mobile units that are out in the most rural areas delivering food, and we partner with a rural food delivery program in Orleans County. On a community level, we provide supplemental food assistance and support for Vermonters and applying for three scores benefits. In our eight Head Start locations that are located throughout the Northeast Kingdom and some of the most rural communities, we always have provided meals and snacks at no cost to our families. Fortunately, NEC is not the only organization providing food assistance and the need has grown exponentially over the past four years for all of our families, not just those living at or below the federal poverty level. We serve many families seeking food assistance for the first time and families that do not qualify for any other benefits because their income exceeds their eligibility criteria and they still cannot afford to feed their children. A major partner in addressing childhood hunger are our schools where all children receive free school meals. I'm sure no one disagrees that food is a human right and our children deserve to be nourished. Providing free meals to our youngest Vermonters is not just the right thing to do, it's an upstream investment in our future. I cannot imagine the impact on our children and families if free meals were not available at schools. And I'm sure that you all know this data, but it is fascinating to think about the average cost of providing lunch and breakfast for a child in Vermont would be $4.58 a day. Think about a family having two elementary grade students annually that would have a savings or disposable or discretionary income for them at about $1,600. Free school meals afford families the opportunity to allocate these financial resources differently. Money that families previously spent on feeding their children breakfast and lunch are now available to spend and improve the quality of their life and the quality of the food that they can provide. Pay debt, manage household expenses for childcare, own and drive vehicles, the way they can invest the money is endless. In Canaan, Vermont, which is one of our most rural communities in the corner of the Northeast Kingdom, we assisted NECA 37 households in that area. Our food shelf turned over 28,000 pounds of food last year with approximately 120 individuals out of a population of 340. Essex County has unique challenges. The NECA Choice District was formed in 2018 and there's currently one high school for elementary schools in a region that's 664 square miles. Many children are transported a significant distance to their schools. And Essex County is a food desert with no major grocer in the entire county. Free school meals become integral to rural areas with unique challenges. And anecdotally, and Anor touched on this as well, I think there's a tremendous benefit of free meals that's not easily quantified. And it's the quality of parent-child relationships. If you've ever parented or had the responsibility of shopping, buying, organizing and preparing school meals for your children, it's a daunting task that can be riddled with tension and strife. Without the daily struggle, parental stress is decreased. Additionally, in Vermont, we have a law 16 VSA 136 that mandates physical education in our schools because we value physical education. But we also know that physical education alone doesn't prove healthy outcomes for children. So coupled with providing healthy balance free meals, children have a better chance of having stronger health outcomes. Finally, I don't think anybody disagrees with the philosophy of feeding children and I'm proud of our commitment to ending childhood hunger in Vermont and hopeful that we can sustain these efforts into the future. And thank you for your time this morning. Well, thank you very much. Great testimony and I'm tired to believe there's not one major food store in Essex County. Yeah, you know, that's, that's something. So who would like any questions? No, it's very interesting. Yeah. Who would like to go next any particular time schedule for anybody. I can go next before I have any issues in my building. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. Good morning and welcome. Again, I'm Cheryl McFaddy. I'm the principal at Lunenburg school. This is my eighth year as principal here and I totally appreciate the universal meals. We are high poverty, a lot of food insecurities. And we also receive 160 backpacks per month from the Vermont food bank and we have our students who asked for them weekly so they're, they're needed. That number has been restricted to only enrolled students. It used to be we could also hand them out if they had younger siblings at home. So that number has been capped. And, you know, for other things that we've tried to build within the Lunenburg community five years ago using some funds from the Vermont principles grant that I got. I've established a food shelf at the town clerk's office and that continues to be maintained and utilized by community members. So that's really important. So my testimony is short and sweet. I jumped on to this yesterday I said okay I'll do this so it's my first time and I appreciate the work everybody has done and these meals are certainly vital to our school. And I appreciate all the work everyone's done. And thank you. Thank you for your comments. Could you elaborate a little bit on the, is it the backpack program that got caught. Yeah. Well I don't know cut or restricted we we could use more than 160 per month. And my admin assistant does the work to order all of these and he said that it's restricted now that it's a can only be for enrolled students. Younger students, younger children at home, we can't send them home the extra ones with them. It's only for the enrolled students that we have. Well, we will certainly check that situation now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Cheryl, how many students are in K through five in Lunenburg. We have just under 60 now. Okay. And you saw and we for a great testimony this morning, a difference for real between what used to be, you know, practice and lunch and what it is there now. Yes, definitely, definitely. And the snack program we have snacks for the kids and they're very healthy a lot of fruit and vegetables and yeah very important in our after school program also gets the meals as well. That's great to hear. Thank you. Thank you. Any other. So we'll move on to. I can go. Yeah. Welcome. Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking the time to hear from us. I'm Katherine Cusack, the executive director at Green Mountain Farm School in Newport. And I, you know, like to focus my moments here focusing on the local food purchasing incentive. I'm certainly high accolades for the universal school meals and have seen, you know, a ripple effect of that. Just to give you a brief background, our organization owns and operates a food hub aggregation and distribution food hub. Our mission is centered around healthy food access local food access. In addition, we do some farm to school education and some other things that happy to talk to you about another time, but I really think the relevant program that we operate as our farm direct food hub. And the effects we've or the benefits we've seen in our experiencing firsthand with the local with universal school meals, which is just expanding school budgets and allowing them to purchase local food. We're currently serving 44 any case schools, 14 of those were first time purchasers in 2023. A lot to do with the local purchasing incentive and then the local food incentive grant that is being funneled through the agency of ag using federal dollars. All we serve 147 schools throughout Vermont. In 2023, those schools purchased $179,000 worth of local food from us. That's 80% of that is returned directly to the farmer. Do you mind repeating that that dollar amount. $179,000. That's good. And that's just our little food hub. We love that. Yeah, that's great. And you know, just I had my staff go back a few years, you know, we're building back up to pre pandemic levels. And we only won that number was 90,000, which was like right in the middle of the pandemic. And so we've doubled that, that volume in the last two years to schools. You know, and we're a lot of that money is supporting any k farms, but we're obviously not sourcing solely from the any k the any k farms that we are sourcing from you know or a lot of dairy. And so we're building back up to the $179,000 worth of local food from our producer and produce. So schools are ordering, you know, the full plate of food from our food hub. And it's, I mean, it's just fantastic and that local purchasing incentive is increased their buying power. And some of our smaller rural schools are challenged with that 15% threshold. When they apply, I'm not sure how much in the nitty gritty or familiar with but that schools need to do to become eligible for the local purchasing incentive. There are some limitations around schools, you know, needing to unify and apply apply as a school district that presents challenges for them when they're spread out and they don't have like one point person doing that work and so one school within a supervisory union that may be meeting that threshold and maybe, you know, rare and ago and wanting to take advantage but because there needs to be a unified supervisory wide application that is preventing some barriers there so I don't know if, if there's some, you know, other considerations for how people are how schools are applying for that local purchasing incentive or how they're meeting that threshold in order to apply. So we're excited about the local food. We call it LFS and I'm, it is escaping me what that LFS stands for, so local food, something through the agency of ag, they applied and received money from the USDA and our food hub is one of the food hubs that's helping to, you know, funnel that money kind of into local food back to the schools and the great thing about that is that they're able to use the purchases with LFS to qualify for the LPI, the local purchasing incentive. And so we're slated to finish the LFS program at the end of calendar year of 2024. And so we're excited to, you know, use that data to help more schools qualify for the local purchasing incentive. So I am hearing, like I said, some challenges around meeting that threshold and the whole application process. I think right currently it's a 15 schools need to show that they're using 15% of their budget to qualify. You know that I'd advocate for 10% for some of our smaller schools. They're really working hard at it. And, you know, a little bit that little bit of latitude would go a long way. I think, yeah, I think, I think the numbers speak for themselves, you know that the economic, the multiplier effect, the, I heard a comment around, you know, climate resiliency and reducing food miles, and then just the health of our, the students that we're having, the food tastes better. There's less food waste. It's really wonderful that there are a lot of schools that, you know, they want to serve more local food. I think that it's how we can break down the barriers for them to access it. And that's what our food hub and several other smaller food hubs across the state have been working on. So I appreciate your support. The universal school meals is great. The local purchasing incentive is great. We see benefits with the farm school and early childhood education grants. We partner with NECA and they purchase food from our food hub to distribute in their food shelves and that's been a great relationship. We do also source local food for backpack programs and holiday meal baskets and so far we've done that fundraising on our own to, to supplement those backpacks. I don't know, you know, if there's stop been given to providing some state funds or you know those out of school time meals, which several people have spoken to the benefits of. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I think at some point, it would be great to, I might pop up and see your hub. It would be great to see it. It sounds like it's working really well, maybe on a Monday I'll be in touch and try to zip up there. Yep, that would be great. The food is actually stored and distributed out of Hardwick. Okay, that's actually even if you're great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. So, thank you. You've got to go next year. The only one left standing. My name is Tanika, and I am the food service director for Caledonia Central Supervisory Union, where seven schools in the Northeast Kingdom area, ranging from 60 students out of school to 350 at Twinfield, and about the same at Danville. So, we range in size pretty significantly and also geographically. But, and most of what I want to do is just kind of reiterate a lot of the things that have already been said, but just having been the food service director for the last three years, I really sort of did a lot of the struggling through the COVID stuff and have been able to see the impact of universal school meals. It's been really profound. And I think most of all, as a result of serving more children regardless of their eligibility status, we've been able to turn our attention away from sort of the business part of meal service and focus back on improving the quality and the variety of our food and increasing our local procurement and building those relationships with our farmers. It's given us the time to be able to go back to the basics of being able to do those things again. And I think that that impact has been profound. And just reiterating everything that Rosie had said, just the way that these programs are starting to kind of unfold. And just with the direct certification through the Medicaid pilot and the USDA federal world change in terms to community eligibility, I can speak to the fact that we are a supervisory union that has has been affected in the positive in a very positive way this year as a result of both of those changes. Our numbers have skyrocketed in terms of free students who are now eligible because of that direct certification through Medicaid times that 1.6 multiplier. Now, we went from being a supervisory union that had a free and reduced eligibility status of somewhere hovering around 30% to now as a supervisory union over 50%. So that puts a lot of money, you know, a lot of our reimbursement back into the federal scoop and away from the costs on state. So I think that we're a great example of the positive benefits of these programs actually working. And a lot of our sites are now actually going to be area eligible schools. And so we're, I've already started working with libraries in our community who are really, really engaged in looking forward to being able to make our sites open sites this summer to be able to provide kids with meals because I know that as a food service director and as a mom at the end of the year. I always get a pit in my stomach, sending kids home not knowing exactly where they're going to get their food, whether it's like what the quality of that food is going to be like. And knowing that we now have this new resource for our area is is really profound. So thank you for everything that you've done to make this possible and make our job much more meaningful. Thanks. Thanks. Maybe a quick question for Jana. Have you noticed any drop in in food hunger century started the universal media program from citizens up in the kingdom. I don't. I think that that's more indicative of economic pressures for families and our largest demographic actually and most of our food shelves are we've an aging population. So we see a lot of people over 55. Yeah, older. They're both. Yeah, well, food costs a lot of money and that they're on social security. It doesn't go quite as far as it used to perhaps for sure. Any other questions from any of you in regards to anything else that we're attempting to do or should be doing that way. You don't hear about separate on the nose. There's And we're in our fourth week. The end of the third end of our third week and you know, we, we've got a quite a few bills coming in. We've been hearing from the different parts of the agency and and things. The universal meals program is an issue that actually it was started from trying to get the farm school stuff, local foods into the hot lunch and and We kept Wondering how we were going to do that with what school meals was paying and I don't know we came up with the idea well we had universal meals and had everybody that could qualify through the federal program. We've had more money coming into our meals program. So they would have more money to provide local fresh, wholesome foods and and as some of you heard this morning. That's all going very well and we had we've had many obstacles to to go over and climb over. But we did get it done and and it really this morning those numbers were quite impressive and and they're the good parts that are They're coming out of that saving people money and and you folks commented and regard well it leaves them a little bit more money To go to the local grocery store will pay the rent or health payment with and so hopefully it's made life a little bit better for our citizens and that's what governments I think But anyways, have you got anything else from any of you if not I know I don't know what time your collaborative meeting is getting done, but I think it's around 1030 And well it's just about 1030 so thanks a lot for being with us this morning and participating. We certainly appreciate your time and energy and of course anytime that you have something you'd like to get hold of us about Feel free to call anytime and my phone's usually busy but keep trying and you know catch up at home even so thanks Thanks again and enjoy your morning. Thank you. Thank you.