Legislative and Regulatory Initiative Assignment

History and Background

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), began phasing a
program into a few states in 2011-2012 called the Community Eligibility
Provision (CEP). The CEP was approved as a portion of the Healthy HungerFree Kids Act of 2010, and was made available nationwide on July 1st, 2014.
The Community Eligibility Program allows schools to provide students free
breakfast and lunch in low-income communities, and allows communities and
families to be unburdened of the applications that are needed to determine
eligibility for free and reduced lunches.
The CEP is a program that schools have to reapply for every four years,
and have to meet the qualification of 40% of students who qualify for the
free or reduced lunch program. If granted this provision, the school must
count all served student breakfasts and lunches, and will not collect
applications for free and reduced meals. This program provides free
breakfast and lunch for all students in who attend the eligible school, rather
than only the students who qualify for meal assistance. According to the
Food Research and Action center, this program has allowed 8.5 million
children access to two free meals every school day.
The CEP program is a way for students to receive breakfast and lunch
without the burden of collecting paperwork from the students. Many times
students do not return filled out paperwork, or they do not take it home to

their parents at all. This program also reduces the burden of chasing down
owed lunch money. This will ensure that every student is fed, and it is proven
that children who eat breakfast and lunch perform better academically.
Current Legislative and/or Regulatory Initiatives
Currently H.R. 5003, The Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of
2016 has been introduced by the House Republicans. This bill will affect the
current Community Eligibility Provision, which was passed in 2010. The new
bill, H.R. 5003, will change the eligibility requirement for the percentage of
free and reduced lunch eligible children it needs for the whole school to
receive free breakfast and lunch.
The bill is aimed to save the government money by reducing the
amount of schools who will qualify for free lunch and breakfast. The current
percentage that makes a school eligible for the Community Eligibility
Provision is 40% of the student body needs to be eligible for free or reduced
lunches. The proposed bill will require schools to meet a 60% percentage of
the student body will need to be eligible for free or reduced lunches. The
students who are eligible for free lunches will continue to be eligible, it will
be the school in a whole who could potentially be effected. This bill is
proposed to alleviate tax payer burden to give the money to the schools with
the greatest need. This bill is also supposed to increase reimbursement for
breakfast without adding additional costs to tax payers.
Additional facts about this bill is that it will ensure schools are meeting
national nutritional standards, improve summer meal availability, improve

the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children (WIC),
and support nutrition education programs.
There has been controversy surrounding this bill proposed by U.S.
Representative Todd Rakita, who has been accused of receiving money from
Red Gold which has been cited as a conflict of interest.

Development of a Position
From a Republican point of view, less government involvement and
lower taxes for citizens are main areas of interest. This bill proposes stricter
eligibility requirements on schools for the Community Eligibility Provision,
which will raise eligibility for the schools ability to receive free school
lunches for the entire student body from 40% to 60%. Looking at this bill
from a financial aspect, this has the ability save the tax payers money.
Schools with a great amount of need will still be eligible for the CEP. The bill
is quoted to save $1 billion over the course of ten years, and according to
Rokita the money that is saved from this bill will be distributed back into
nutrition programs.
With politics, its easy to look at the financial impact of bills, and only
look at that one aspect. A factor to consider is, will children be eating lunch
every day. Schools are rated on how well they preform academically. There is
a learning connection here that is being missed by politicians. Students who
are consuming breakfast and lunch are shown to perform better in the
classroom. When a child is eating regular meals they can focus better in the

classroom, and are thinking about adding and subtracting and not where
their next meal is going to come from.
Rising to percentage of eligibility from 40% to 60% is a drastic change.
This means that schools who sit at 50%, will be ineligible for all school free
lunch. If half of the student body is in need, they still will not be eligible for
the community eligibility provision (CEP). The bill is to target those who Todd
Rokita says are most in need. I stand by any child who is going hungry is a
child in need. According to the Indianapolis Star, this change would affect
120 school in Indiana, and 14 of those schools are located in Marion County.

Communication of Recommendations to Policymaker

The way I contacted U.S. Representative was a phone call. I drafted a
statement based on my position and urged the Rokita to reconsider the
percentage of eligibility. I left a voicemail suggesting the percentage of
eligibility be reduced from 60% to 50%. This way there would still be money
being saved and redirected towards other nutrition programs, but it would
also include schools who have a high poverty level in the student body.