Plan to provide free lunch for all Washington students is falling out of favor amid budget shortfall

A plan backed by Gov. Bob Ferguson to provide free meals to all school children appears to be fading as many lawmakers say they favor boosting other education needs instead.

The Senate Education Committee considered the proposal championed by Ferguson, who traveled to Whitman Elementary in Spokane days before taking office to pitch the idea, though it failed to advance out of committee before Friday’s cutoff deadline.

In an interview, Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, the bill’s prime sponsor, said while he was disappointed the proposal has so far failed to advance, he continues to work with legislators in the House to find a “path forward” this session.

“The end goal is covering all of our kids, the vehicle is of no consequence to me,” Riccelli said. “It is frustrating, because I think it’s wildly popular. Multiple states are doing it; it’s something that resonates with the public.”

While a firm cost is not yet available, current indications show it may not be feasible given budgetary restraints. During a February Senate Education Committee hearing, Chair Lisa Wellman, D-Mercer Island, indicated that the proposal could take money away from other programs to provide meals to students whose families could otherwise afford to pay.

“We all support making sure every student has the necessary nutrition during the day. There’s no question here that this is something we’re positive about,” Wellman said. “We also know that it costs money, and unfortunately, we have limited resources, especially this year with a budget deficit.”

The education committee has passed a trio of bills to provide more money to cover school transportation, special education and a category called MSOC, which stands for materials, supplies and operating costs. In total, the proposals would cost an additional $1 billion in the budget, though Wellman said they are “not yet fully funded,” and school administrators agree.

“I don’t believe that we will be able to fund all of these items, plus meals on top of that, as much as we would like to be providing everything we possibly can to students,” Wellman said. “I would like to ask everyone who is testifying to let me know which of the three bills that we passed last week you would like us not to move forward in order to fund school meals for everyone.”

The “big three” funding requests for schools across Washington are consistently in the areas of transportation, special education and MSOC, which includes insurance, building bills to “keep the lights on” and school supplies like pencils, curriculum and computers, to name a few.

Both Sandra Jarrard and Marla Nunberg, spokespeople for Spokane Public Schools and Central Valley school district, respectively, said these areas have been their school district’s priorities as long as each of them can recall.

“The money we’re receiving from the state or federal budget is underfunded for what the needs are in those specific areas,” Nunberg said.

In 2024, Central Valley spent over $1 million from local tax sources to supplement state funding for special education. The year prior, they paid $6.8 million above what the state allocated per their funding formula based largely on enrollment.

On transportation, Central Valley paid $630,000 above the state’s allocation in 2024 and “underfunded” MSOC expenditures by nearly $700,000.

If the state had fully covered these areas, Nunberg said the district could have funneled more money into other areas of education, like employing more staff to lower class sizes or activities for kids. The board could also approve a lower levy and tax property owners at a lower rate.

“Really those local dollars are supplementing what we have from the state or federal dollars,” she said.

While Spokane Public Schools couldn’t provide similar numbers from that district, school board President Nikki Otero Lockwood said she’s seen a “dramatic” increase in MSOC costs for schools around the state.

“Just like households are feeling the impacts of inflation, so are school districts,” she said on a phone call from Washington, D.C., where she’d just met with federal lawmakers and the Department of Education on a Washington State School Directors Association trip. “It’s insurance rates, it’s utilities, it’s curriculum and other costs; those numbers have gone up dramatically.”

Special education funding has long been a priority for Lockwood as the parent of a now-graduated student with special needs who received special education in Spokane Public Schools.

“Decades of underfunding have not improved outcomes, so it would be nice to try something different,” she said.

She’s seen incremental improvements in graduation rates for students with disabilities, and heard several success stories from the transitions programs that serve students with disabilities aged 18 to 22 who still qualify for public schooling. In one success story, a student was hired to work at a local grocery store after working there through the transitions program. Another earned their commercial driver’s license, while another told Lockwood special education programming was the first time they’d felt belonging in school.

“The expectations were given to them – what it means to be a good worker, and they met the bar, and they are successful,” Lockwood said.

The “big three” remain Spokane Public Schools’ priority, Jarrard and Lockwood each said, but Jarrard said the district supports expanding free school meals. Lockwood said the board hadn’t discussed universal free school meals as a priority. Spokane Public Schools already offers breakfast and lunch to its students at no cost due to the state’s free meal formula based on the percentage of low-income students in a district.

The Office of Management and Budget has not indicated a price for the universal free meals proposal, though the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction reported in October more kids in more schools eating free meals than initially expected, with a cost of $108 million per year to feed the 70% of schoolchildren who qualify for free food under current law.

“Seventy percent is a C-minus, and our kids deserve an A-plus in being fed,” Riccelli said Friday.

During his testimony in the Senate education committee, Riccelli called the plan the “last piece to really meeting an obligation to our students to help them thrive” as he testified in support Tuesday.

“We can’t expect kids who are hungry, or doing their homework by the dome light of a car, to be successful,” Riccelli said. “They need to be fed. We know that if they have access to nutrition, they’ll thrive in school.”

The bill would have other benefits, Riccelli said, including fewer disruptions and a decrease in absences.

In testimony before the Senate education committee, Jenny Choi, Ferguson’s K-12 education policy advisor, said, “The governor maintains his commitment that Washington must increase, not decrease, the portion of the budget that supports K-12 education and has not indicated in any way that school meals should take precedence or replace from certain students with specialized needs or getting them safely to school.”

For legislators, the governor’s request could prove challenging to fulfill.

During a media availability earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Jaimie Pedersen, D-Seattle, said that the lawmakers are “at the very beginning” of the process to determine which bills to prioritize and fund in the session.

In his remarks, Pedersen said he frequently hears from school districts throughout the state about the need to fund “the big three.”

“When I have talked to advocates for education funding about which of those things they would like us not to do so we can pay for school lunches for everyone, including families that can afford to pay for lunches, I have yet to find anybody who believes that funding lunches is a more important priority than funding special education and material supplies and operating costs.”

His counterpart, Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, said he believes funding transportation, special education and MSOC is part of the legislature’s “paramount duty,” though he supports expanding access to free meals.

“The school lunch thing, I don’t think candidly, that’s a constitutional requirement, so that would have to be the thing that comes last,” Braun said. “I think most likely, given our budget situation, the most likely path would be to phase it in over time.”