Last week, Joe Lombardo scrambled to justify vetoing guaranteed school meals for Nevada children and forcing many parents to spend more money this year than last. First, Lombardo flat-out lied about vetoing the bill at all, then a fact check found Lombardo’s justification that many meals are “thrown away” to be false.
Despite being fact-checked, Assembly Deputy Minority Whip Danielle Gallant called school lunches for hungry kids “wasteful government spending” and Carrie Buck said that the budget won’t be on “wasted food.” The Nevada Assembly Republican Caucus doubled down claiming that ensuring no student in Nevada goes hungry would be a waste of money.
For the 2024-25 school year, a family of four making $40,056 or less would be eligible for guaranteed meals. But for families on the fringes, earning even $1 over the limit disqualifies hardworking Nevadans regardless of other circumstances. Majority Floor Leader Sandra Jauregui and Assemblywoman Shea Backus submitted a bill reintroducing guaranteed meals for all public school students across the state. This bill would be the first step in addressing food insecurity and student access to nutritious meals.
“Guaranteed meals improve student outcomes and create a better learning environment, yet Joe Lombardo vetoed legislation making this policy permanent in Nevada,” said Nevada State Democratic Party Spokesperson Claudia Alvarado. “Now, legislative Republicans are doubling down, saying feeding students is a ‘waste of money.’ Preparing students for the future and relieving the pressure on parents’ pocketbooks shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but Republicans continue to put Nevada’s students, parents, and teachers last.”
What people are reading:
2 News: 35 Schools in the Washoe County School District will no longer automatically receive free meals
Key Points:
- In June, Nevada governor, Joe Lombardo, vetoed the Universal School Meals Bill, which means Nevada K-12 students don’t automatically get free meals like they did during the pandemic.
- Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, is a meal service option for schools in low-income areas that provides free meals to all students.
- Those students at the remaining 35 schools that aren’t in low-income areas will have to apply for free meals.
- If students are accepted or not is based on household income.
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
Selena La Rue Hatch
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
Rocío Hernández
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.
In - “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
Casey Harrison
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
Eric Neugeboren
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.
What people are saying:
@nicole4nevada: One hungry kid is one too many.
AB 139 would have ensured we didn’t have to look even one child in the eye and tell them we wouldn’t feed them.
Kids can’t learn if they are hungry.
And hungry kids can’t eat a letter.
@steveyeagernv: Nor can they eat a veto letter. Nevadans shouldn’t be forced to stomach such a cruel and callous veto and then be gaslighted about it on social media by MAGA extremist Republicans. We deserve better. #Win2024 #NVLeg
@howardwattsnv: Summarizing existing programs and taking credit for the work of the legislature and previous administrations?
Surprised this wasn’t branded as the “School Meal Innovation Plan”
@rociohzz: Earlier this year, I reached out to the researchers behind the studies that the gov is citing here. They said that 73% figure should “not be taken out of context to generalize these findings to schools everywhere.”
@SelenaTorresNV: .@JoeLombardoNV you’re right, politics has no place in school cafeterias. I know that first hand because I’ve worked lunch duty.
No school should deny a student lunch because they don’t have the resources to pay. It’s time we have consistent funding for school lunches.
@La_Rue_Hatch: Nevada families deserve better than a governor who literally takes food out of kids’ mouths.
And Nevada voters deserve a leader who takes responsibility for their actions and doesn’t spew misinformation to try to justify the unjustifiable.
@sandra4nv: Nevada families will always remember that @JoeLombardoNV stole their kids lunch money.
@NSEAOnline: There are numerous benefits to free meals for students:
✅School meals support learning
✅School meals promote healthy eating habits
✅School meals improve outcomes
✅School meals for all keeps the focus on nutrition and students.
An “education” governor doesn’t veto that bill.
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