HARTFORD – State Senator Jorge Cabrera (D-Hamden)voted with his colleagues today to fund free student breakfasts and lunches through the end of the current school year for half a million Connecticut students. The senator also voted to continue for another five years Connecticut’s tough budget safeguards that have allowed our state to build up its largest budget reserve ever, while devoting billions of dollars toward old, unfunded pension debt. The senator said the free meals for students is the correct course of action for the legislature to take.
“Today’s vote to extend the free school meals program through to the conclusion of the school year is great news for children across the state and I’m proud to vote yes,” said Sen. Cabrera. “It is unconscionable to expect children to perform at a high level when they’re hungry. The need for free school meals is a nationwide issue and as the federal program ends, many students still require this essential support. This is the right move to make, as it will continue to provide Connecticut students with nutritional meals to help them thrive each day.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government extended its free and reduced-price meals policy to all 50 million public school students nationwide – including those in Connecticut. But, like many federal grants tied to the pandemic, that funding was for a limited time only. The federal funding for free school meals for everyone expired on September 30, 2022, although last spring Democrats set aside $30 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and out it in the state budget to continue providing free school breakfast and lunch to Connecticut students through December 31, 2022.
Now, those funds have run dry. Today’s vote moves $60 million from the Invest CT program and into the Free Meals for Students program to provide free school meals through the end of the current school year, usually around mid-to-late June. Free meals will be provided to more than 500,000 students in all 169 towns.
The senator also voted today to continue the Democrat-led financial restraints that were first put in place in 2017.
Today’s bill will: