In his letter dated Sept. 11, DCCA Secretary Melvin O. Faisao asked Sablan to co-sponsor the Hunger Free Schools Act of 2009 introduced by Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
“This bill is important because it will make it possible for children from low-income families to participate in school meal programs by expanding direct certification for school meal eligibility,” Faisao said.
The legislation will provide for expanded access to child nutrition programs by requiring schools to utilize data from Medicaid and the state Children’s Health Insurance Program to directly certify more students that are eligible for free school meals.
In addition, the bill will allow schools or districts serving a high proportion of low-income children to serve free meals to all students and be reimbursed based on socioeconomic data rather than individual applications, and improve state performance in directly certifying eligible children by setting a performance standard — 95 percent of eligible students should be directly certified for school lunch programs — and providing incentives to high performance states.
Faisao said the bill will improve the process of “direct certification.”
This is a process in which children who receive food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservation are automatically enrolled for free school meals.
This is done by requiring states to use data matching processes and by adding Medicaid to the qualified matching programs.
The bill provides performance awards to states that directly certify a high proportion of eligible children or that show significant improvement in their system.
It also requires states that directly certify less than 95 percent of children eligible for direct certification to submit an improvement plan.
