Detroit Lakes Public Schools Weighing Financial Impact of Free Lunch Bill

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – All students across the state will be eligible for free breakfast and lunch at schools beginning next school year after Governor Tim Walz signed a new bill on March 17th that will allocate $200 million per year to feed roughly 600,000 students.

Students will be able to receive one free breakfast and one free lunch per day regardless of household income.

Detroit Lakes Public Schools Director of Finance and Operations Jason Kuehn says this will be a beneficial program for the school district.

“This is going to be very impactful for our district,” Kuehn told the Detroit Lakes School Board on Monday evening. “This year, free and reduced lunches for students ticked up to around 45%. Even so, I know there are families in this district that would benefit from this program.”

The state had a similar program to assist families during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing students with free breakfast and lunch for the 2020-21 school year, as well as the 2021-22 year. Detroit Lakes also offered free summer meals to students as well.

While the program does have a lot of positives, Kuehn says there could be some issues.

“The majority of our revenue for food service comes from the federal government, in terms of students generating revenue for reimbursement for being eligible for free and reduced lunches,” said Kuehn. “We’ve seen a big increase in students this year who are eligible through the Direct Certification pilot program that Minnesota ran this year. That’s one thing that we’re going to monitor to see how that’s impacted. In the past, when there have been free meals for all students, we’ve had difficulty getting families to fill out the Educational Benefit applications. Those applications not only help the families but also help out the school district as well in generating extra aid.”

Families that qualify for the Educational Benefits could also receive reduced activity fees or see a reduction in other school expenses.

The Detroit Lakes School District has around 2,800 students enrolled in pre-K through grade 12 this year. Last year, the district served up more than 96,000 breakfasts and over 250,000 lunches.