It’s the end of the grading period for Washoe County School District, and the NVGOP legislators’ report cards revealed they received failing grades for doubling down on refusing to feed Washoe County students. Even after Washoe County drained savings to cover school meals for the first month of the school year, Republicans in the State Legislature stood by Joe Lombardo’s veto calling the program a “waste of money.” As of last month, Washoe County parents will have to pay more this year than last year for school meals and students will no longer have the guarantee of being able to eat at school, something that can make a sizable impact on students’ educational attainment, specifically by improving student health and attendance, reducing disciplinary infractions, and increasing test scores among marginalized groups of students.
Lombardo’s veto is in lockstep with the extremist provisions in his endorsed candidate Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, which also wants to drastically curtail access to nutritious meals for students. Trump’s MAGA-Project 2025 agenda would completely eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision in the federal school food program that benefits hundreds of Nevada public schools.
See additional report card comments from teachers, parents, and more below:
Reno Gazette-Journal (OPINION): Gov. Lombardo, your veto means Washoe County kids go hungry
Key points:
- As President of the Washoe County School Board, but more importantly as a mom of two kids, I know why feeding children is so important and how devastating hunger is on students’ ability to learn. As a parent, I work hard every day to provide for my family, and I am frustrated — heartbroken, even — by Gov. Joe Lombardo’s decision to veto the bipartisan bill that would have guaranteed school meals for all Washoe County kids. Many families are like mine; we do our best to balance work, family life and all the challenges that come with raising children. One thing that’s a no-brainer is the importance of feeding kids. Unfortunately, Joe Lombardo got it wrong, and because of him, students in our county will go without free access to nutritious meals at school — often the only food they get in a day.
- Gov. Lombardo likes to call himself the “education governor,” but his veto of school meals last session says otherwise. Instead of standing up for Nevada’s children, he has chosen to play political games at their expense and now WCSD has been forced to drain its savings to provide guaranteed meals for just the first month of school. After that, kids and families are on their own at dozens of schools. Joe Lombardo asked for $25 million to furnish his and his staffs’ offices, but is refusing to provide meals for Nevada students, saying doing so would be a waste of money. It’s easy for him to make these decisions from the comfort of the Governor’s Mansion.
- I understand and have heard the arguments against feeding kids, like “Can’t the kids who need it just fill out the paperwork?” Well, sure, but I know from being on the school board that any bureaucratic barriers, like paperwork, mean fewer families apply. Also, those kids who go to school with more well-off peers are often embarrassed to use free lunch vouchers in front of friends and instead don’t use them and go hungry.
- Then there is, “We shouldn’t have to pay for rich kids to have food!” Well, if that means kids who need food get food, then it’s worth it to me. Also, if guaranteed meals give parents a little extra money in their budget, then that’s money available for groceries at home or clothes, which is better for our whole local economy.
- Food insecurity and economic hardship exist in every neighborhood. Deciding which kids freely eat with dignity versus those who can’t by their ZIP code and affluence of their neighbors is wrong.
- What the governor doesn’t seem to understand is that this issue goes beyond politics. It’s about the well-being of our children. Studies have shown that students perform better academically when they have access to nutritious meals. By blocking this bill, Lombardo has made it harder for countless children to reach their full potential simply because their parents make as little as just over $40,000 a year as a family of four, because in his words that means they’re “well-to-do”.
- I talk to our neighbors daily, and every reasonable Republican, Democrat and nonpartisan I’ve met agrees that feeding our kids during the school day is common sense. Gov. Lombardo and those extreme Republicans in the Legislature who are against this are sending a message that only some of Nevada’s children are worth supporting and that’s unacceptable, especially after they voted against the Education Budget altogether. Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in the classroom, and part of that success is having the nutrition they need to thrive.
- It’s time for voters to elect a legislature that will deliver for working families and guarantee meals for all Nevada’s children because we can’t fill kids’ minds when their stomachs are empty.
2 News: Beth Smith “serves up” op-ed criticizing Gov. Lombardo’s free school lunch veto
Key points:
- ANCHOR: In the 2023 Nevada legislative session, Governor Joe Lombardo, you might recall, vetoed a $43 million extension of the pandemic era, universal free school meals program. Now the veto of the program, which provided funding from the US Department of Agriculture, has forced the Washoe County School District to dip into its general budget to backfill it.
- BETH SMITH: It’s about feeding kids. As simple as that, our kids need to be fed in order to do their best, in order to succeed in school.
The Nevada Independent: Indy Explains: What’s happening with universal free meals for Nevada students?
Key points:
- “It’s been fantastic,” said Elizabeth Martinez, the district’s director of nutrition services. “For the past four years, we haven’t had parents calling us freaking out because they make 50 cents over the income guidelines to get assistance to get their kids food.”
- But last year, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed a bill, AB319, sponsored by Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) that would have appropriated $43 million to the state Department of Agriculture to continue providing universal free breakfast and lunch to Nevada students. Lombardo said in his veto message, “providing universal-free lunch will increase the amount of food purchased and, unfortunately, ultimately thrown away,” and claimed that studies have shown that as much as 73 percent of food provided through school lunch programs ends up in the trash.
- Lombardo made a similar statement at a March IndyTalks event, and suggested that the waste was in part to kids in “well-to-do neighborhoods” receiving meals. A recent fact check by The Nevada Independent found Lombardo’s claim to be false because it suggests a data point from one study on vegetable waste reflects overall waste rates.
- While the Carson City School District doesn’t track food waste, Martinez said she doesn’t think it was increased during COVID. She compared Lombardo’s reasoning for his veto to a parent taking food away from one child because their other child didn’t finish their meal.
- “Why is that an excuse?” she asked. “Why is that a reason to take funding for free meals away from students that need them?”
ThisIsReno: Opinion: Hungry students can’t learn
Key Points:
- Thanks to an extreme veto by Governor Lombardo last session, many kids will no longer have access to the guaranteed meals that have been sustaining their learning and growth for the last four years.
- For the first time in four years, parents will be asked to pay for the meals their children receive at school. If they can’t pay, which is the reality for many, kids will go hungry.
- Food insecurity is a real issue in our state and too many of our children are going without. One in five children in Nevada face hunger on a daily basis.
- Sadly, for many kids, the two meals provided at school are the only meals they’ll have all day.
- The benefits of implementing permanent, guaranteed school meal programs are well-documented. Aside from improving diet and health, research shows these programs also reduce absenteeism, improve student behavior, eliminate social stigmas, and improve learning outcomes.
The Nevada Independent: Nevada Democrats set up 2025 fight with Lombardo over free school meals
Key points:
- Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce legislation in the upcoming legislative session that would revive funding for free school meals to all K-12 Nevada students — setting up a standoff with Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who vetoed a similar measure last year.
- The bill draft request was filed last Wednesday by Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas), the sponsor of the 2023 bill, and Assemblywoman Shea Backus (D-Las Vegas), who said the legislation would be able to alleviate the financial burdens families are facing.
- “I’m just hoping [Lombardo] realizes how important and popular this is … with Nevadans,” Backus said.
- However, an effort in the 2023 legislative session to allocate $43 million in state funds to continue the program was vetoed by Lombardo, who said in his veto message it would contribute to food waste and that it was time for school districts to “return to the normalcy of pre-pandemic operations.”
- Research shows school meals are associated with better attendance rates, fewer missed school days and better test scores.
The Nevadan: With classes starting soon, Nevada Democrats still lament Lombardo’s veto of universal school meals bill
Key points:
- This academic year will mark the first that breakfasts and lunches won’t be provided for free to kids since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Meanwhile, the bill Nevada lawmakers passed last year, Assembly Bill 319, was ultimately vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
- The proposal, which had bipartisan support, would have allocated $43 million from the state general fund to continue the initiative.
- Now, as public schools are scheduled to begin the new academic calendar next week, state Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday said they plan to re-introduce the bill once the next legislative session begins in January, with the hope that Lombardo will change his mind. But even if he doesn’t, if Democrats flip one seat in the state senate in the November election, the party would have a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature and could override any of Lombardo’s vetoes for the remainder of his first term.
- “I hope after this last legislative session and just hearing from constituents in our community about how important this is,” the governor will want to sign it, Backus said.
- “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
The Nevada Independent: Lombardo decries ‘misinformation’ over free school meals in open letter
Key points:
- In a statement Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) described the letter as “a lot of words to try to justify an unjustifiable veto.”
- “Feeding all kids shouldn’t be a partisan issue yet callous, MAGA [R]epublicans have made it one,” Yeager said in the statement.
- Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas), the sponsor of the 2023 bill, and Assemblywoman Shea Backus (D-Las Vegas) submitted a bill draft request earlier this month to bring back the legislation next year. Democrats also held a press conference this month featuring signs accusing the governor of having stolen “our kids’ lunch money.”
- Research shows school meals are associated with better attendance rates, fewer missed school days and better test scores.
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