Controversial school meal income verification proposal divides Kansas Republicans
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Senate advances SB 387 to verify income for families who apply for free meals
- Bill links verified income data to at-risk funding, risking reduced at-risk dollars
- Critics warn verification adds costs, privacy risks and may jeopardize federal aid
Starting next school year, roughly 34,000 Kansas students who qualify for reduced-price meals could get free breakfast and lunch under a bill passed by a divided Kansas Senate last week.
But the bill’s advancement was not cause for celebration among the food security advocates who have been calling for state funds to cover the cost of school meal copays for years.
That’s because SB 387, sponsored by Sen. Doug Shane, a Louisburg Republican, aims to make a number of other changes to the state’s school nutrition standards.
For one, it would require school districts to verify the reported household income of every student who applies for free meals — a process the state Department of Education estimates would add 15,000 hours of annual administrative work across nearly 300 public school systems.
The bill would also prohibit districts from participating in the National School Lunch Program’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) — a funding option that provides free meals for every student in high-poverty schools — without the Legislature’s explicit permission.
“I have big worries about this bill,” said Haley Kottler, senior campaign director at Kansas Appleseed, a nonprofit organization that champions food access and other social issues.
Kottler said requiring lawmakers’ approval to opt into CEP would likely have a “chilling effect” on district participation in the federal program best positioned to fight childhood hunger in low-income neighborhood schools.
“Community Eligibility works well because it is a local decision that school districts make for kids in that community,” she said.
According to state data, 73% of Kansas school buildings have a large enough proportion of disadvantaged pupils to qualify for the federal program. Only 11% — 192 school buildings — actually make use of CEP to offer all students free meals.
Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools is one of the few districts in the state that has leveraged the program to offer free meals to every student in every building, regardless of their household income.
In written testimony opposing SB 387, KCK Superintendent Anna Stubblefield characterized the enhanced income verification proposal as burdensome and invasive.
“The National School Lunch Act (NSLA) includes clear protections for the confidentiality of income-based household information,” Stubblefield wrote. “These protections are foundational to the program and exist to prevent stigma and shame, encourage participation, and ensure legal compliance.”
The bill would provide no additional funding to account for the cost of implementing its income verification mandate.
“Absorbing these costs at the local level would force districts to redirect resources from classrooms or essential student supports, contrary to both federal program design and legislative intent,” Stubblefield wrote.
Olathe Public Schools Superintendent Brent Yeager estimated that the additional work of obtaining and reviewing documentation for every family that applies for free meals would cost his district nearly $200,000 a year.
At-risk school funding
If enacted into law, the bill would not actually use family income verification to determine which students receive free breakfast and lunch, Shane said. The data would be used for other purposes.
Shane amended the bill in the Senate’s government efficiency committee after Department of Education officials pointed out that federal law bars districts from verifying more than the required 3% of free and reduced meal applications for compliance purposes.
The amended bill would instead directly link the income data collected for free meal applications to how much money each district receives in funding to support students at risk of falling behind academically.
Kansas has historically awarded at-risk dollars to districts based on how many students qualify for free meals.
But a July 2025 state audit estimated that more than half of the students who applied for and received free meals during the 2023-24 school year likely didn’t meet the eligibility requirements.
“There’s a number of those students that actually would not have qualified for free and reduced lunch if their income had been verified. And so that’s an overage or an overpayment in at-risk (funding for schools),” Shane said in an interview last week.
“That’s the state’s money, and so we should be able to set our own rules for how we spend those funds,” he said.
Only families that have to apply for school meals would be required to provide evidence of their household income, such as a pay stub or W-2, under Shane’s bill.
The audit found that 16% of Kansas students who received free meals qualified by submitting an application, while the vast majority qualified automatically, including homeless students, those in foster care, and those whose families were on Medicaid or received monthly food assistance.
By giving districts less money to promote at-risk student achievement, Kansas could afford to eliminate copays for students who currently qualify for reduced-price meals, Shane said.
According to Gov. Laura Kelly’s office, that would cost roughly $2.5 million a year. Kelly, a Democrat, has made eliminating the copay one of her legislative priorities each of the last two years.
But a spokesperson for Kelly said the governor has deep concerns that SB 387 could jeopardize Kansas’ $250 million in federal school meal funding and potentially violate the Legislature’s school funding obligations set by the Kansas Supreme Court.
“While Gov. Kelly supports expanding free school meals to students currently on reduced price meals, this bill, as currently written, makes significant changes that will jeopardize millions in school funding and result in more children going hungry,” Grace Hoge, Kelly’s press secretary, said in a statement to The Star.
School meal bill divides Republicans
Shane’s bill passed the Senate on Wednesday by a vote of 22-18, with nine Republicans joining all nine Democrats in opposition.
Sen. Mike Argabright, an Olpe Republican who voted against the bill, said during the floor debate that school districts already work to verify reported household income within the restraints of federal regulations. It’s a process that requires discretion and the careful cultivation of trust between families and administrators, he said.
“You have to go have a one-on-one with someone so that they trust that you’re not diving into something that you shouldn’t be diving into,” Argabright said. “And although there may be a perception that we’re out chasing state dollars doing that, the reality is we want the kids fed.”
Sen. Joe Claeys, a Maize Republican, proposed two amendments that both failed. One would have commissioned an audit seeking other methods for allocating at-risk funding. The other would have removed the requirement that districts obtain the Legislature’s approval before opting into the program that lets all kids in high-poverty schools eat for free.
“Reviewing individual school district nutrition applications is not a productive use of our time,” Claeys said during the debate. He ultimately voted for the bill anyway.
So did Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican who chairs the government efficiency committee and the education funding task force.
“I think we’re losing sight of what this bill really does,” Erickson said. “It does not take food out of the mouths of children. We’re looking at the proxy for our at-risk funding, and all we’re saying is we want it to be accurate.”
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, said implementing SB 387 a year before the deadline for adopting a new school finance formula would put Kansas in a precarious position.
“We are on the cusp of a new finance formula, and this bill is only further risking the stability of our schools and the funding that they rely on, and we are constitutionally mandated to provide that,” Sykes said.
Before the bill could be enacted into law, it would have to be adopted by the Republican-controlled House, which hasn’t taken it up yet. If Kelly vetoed the legislation, a veto override would take the support of two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber — a threshold the Senate fell well short of on Wednesday.
