Letter to the Hon. Sonny Perdue, Secretary of the Dept. of Agriculture - U.S. Reps. David Trone, Don Young, Lead 54 Bipartisan Members of Congress to Urge USDA to Waive Restrictions on Access to School Meals Across the Country

Letter

Dear Secretary Perdue:

We appreciate the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service's (USDA FNS) efforts to ensure children have access to nutritious food during the COVID-19 pandemic through the issuance of nationwide waivers and guidance to get Pandemic EBT swiftly implemented after the passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. As more families feel the economic impact of the crisis, we urge you to continue to issue nationwide waivers to respond to the growing need, including a nationwide area eligibility waiver, and to extend the child nutrition waivers past June 30, to ease the administrative burden on State child nutrition agencies as well as Food and Nutrition Services staff. Specifically, we ask that you:

Continue to address the new challenges states are facing and issue nationwide waivers for all requests that USDA has already received that strengthen or expand child nutrition benefits. The initial set of nationwide waivers were incredibly helpful, but there is still more to be done to respond to the growing need. States, schools, and community stakeholders have been on the frontline responding to the crisis. They have the best understanding of the challenges and barriers being faced. The waivers that states have submitted are critical to easing administrative barriers and allowing meals to be served. These should be made available nationwide to allow an easier administrative process while allowing for continued oversight.

Extend the area eligibility waiver nationwide. While a majority of states have received an area eligibility waiver over the past two weeks, they vary greatly. In every state, it is an administrative challenge for schools and sponsors to identify children who have been certified for free or reduced-price school meals, especially in rural areas. In addition, with each passing day, more children are becoming eligible for free school meals. With schools closed there are significant barriers for newly eligible families to be certified to receive free school meals.

Extend the deadlines for all nationwide waivers past the current expiration date of June 30, 2020. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act gave USDA the authority to issue nationwide waivers until September 30, 2020. We urge you extend the waivers to September 30 or until this public health emergency ends to give states, schools and community partners the flexibility they need to ensure low-income children have access to meals during this crisis.
We appreciate your consideration and encourage you to move quickly to ensure states have all the tools and security they need to respond to the current crisis.

Sincerely,