Colorado’s free school meals program is again on shaky ground — and lawmakers may ask voters to rescue it

Colorado’s universal school meals program has again blown past its projected costs by tens of millions of dollars, igniting a renewed search by lawmakers for ways to guarantee sustainability — through cuts or a financial boost — for the program.

Voters approved the Healthy School Meals for All program in 2022 with the passage of Proposition FF. It gives all Colorado school children free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their families’ ability to pay. Backers originally expected the free meals would cost between $48.5 million and $78.5 million annually.

Now, state budget analysts expect it to cost $150.8 million a year.

State lawmakers last year nixed some auxiliary pieces of the program to make up the gap, and they plan to do so again this year. That will still leave the state about $50 million short of what it would take to fully fund the program.

But with the state general fund facing its own $1 billion shortfall, there are few options for lawmakers to make up the gap.

Instead, it will likely fall on voters to decide the program’s fate this November. House Bill 1274, sponsored by Rep. Lorena Garcia and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, both Democrats, would send two questions to voters this fall: one to allow the program to keep $12.4 million the state collected above its revenue projections, and a second to boost its collections by further limiting income tax deductions for Coloradans making more than $300,000 per year.

For people whose adjusted gross income is in that category, the current deduction limits set under Prop. FF — $12,000 for single filers and $16,000 for joint filers — would decrease to $1,000 and $2,000, respectively. The difference would go to support the meals program, bringing in an estimated $100 million per year, depending on federal tax policy.

The proposal passed its first committee vote Thursday. It still needs to pass the full House of Representatives and the Senate before lawmakers place it on the ballot.

“This bill is trying to correct a problem that we could not see coming, and now we are trying our best to catch up,” Garcia said at the hearing, noting that “we’re letting (voters) choose whether to continue this program.”

The program provides more than 600,000 meals a day across the state, according to the advocacy group Hunger Free Colorado, for a total of more than 100 million meals served in its first full year. It prioritizes the sourcing of food from local farmers, feeding both rural economies and students who otherwise couldn’t learn with empty bellies — while also giving families a much-needed break on rising food costs, advocates say.

“Access to free meals is more important than ever to Colorado families,” Anya Rose, policy director for Hunger Free Colorado, testified at the hearing.

The bill cleared its first hurdle on a 7-5 party-line vote, with the Democratic majority in favor. Republican Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, a former school principal from Eaton, questioned the costs of providing meals to every family, including the most affluent — especially as broader economic conditions threaten to roil families and the state budget further.

“This is a noble cause,” Garcia Sander said ahead of the vote. “I know students need food in their bellies to focus and to learn. That said, I think if voters who approved FF knew how much food is thrown away, they’d be appalled. … Our most affluent communities are preparing food that is getting tossed.”

Costs likewise rankled members of the Joint Budget Committee earlier in the week. The powerful budget-drafting committee is tasked with cutting state spending while trying to preserve money for state priorities.