McGovern, in his letter, said that the Department of Agriculture's "actions in proposing these regulations only three weeks before school was to start and allowing for a period of comment of only 15 days is such an abuse of its regulatory power as to show a complete disregard for the responsibilities and obligations of the states regarding this program."

Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Richard Lyng, in announcing the regulations, had pointed out that "fiscal discipline is always difficult but it is absolutely essential . . . if we're to live within our budget."

[From the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Sept. 9, 1971]

DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER

DEAR COLLEAGUE: Upon returning from the summer recess, we became aware of a serious crisis in the National School Lunch Program. On August 13, 1971, the Department of Agriculture published proposed regulations which reduced the reimbursement rate per meal to 35 cents, although the actual cost of meals averages above 50 cents per meal.

These regulations have precipitated a fiscal crisis in school districts throughout the nation. Three weeks before the opening of school, states and localities have, in effect, been told that they must finance the difference between the lower reimbursement rate of the proposed regulations and the reimbursement rate they were receiving at the close of the last school year.

In testimony before the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs on September 7, 1971, the effect of this change was made clear by Josephine Martin, the State Director of the Georgia School Lunch Program, who said that in her state the 35 cent reimbursement rate would be a reduction of 7 cents per meal and represented a loss of over $9 million. This is only an example of what will be a nationwide condition if these regulations are allowed to become final.

The options available to the states and school districts are not promising. They could increase local school taxes or raise the price of school lunches for those children who can afford to pay.

It is difficult to imagine school districts raising additional tax revenue on such short notice, even if the taxpayers could be so persuaded in these troubled times. If the school districts were to raise the price of lunches for the paying children, many of these children would be driven out of the program.

Only a speedy withdrawal of these proposed regulations and the issuance of regulations which conform with the mandate of Public Law 91-248, that every needy child shall receive a free or reduced price lunch, can prevent the chaos that these proposed regulations threaten.

It is for this reason that we have joined the State Directors Section of the American School Food Service Association, who unanimously decried the proposed regulations, in calling for their immediate withdrawal.

We hope that you will join us in expressing this desire to the President in the form of the attached letter.

If you have further inquiries please contact Gerald Cassidy or Jack Quinn at 57326 or Jud Sommer of the minority staff at 53921.

Sincerely yours,

[Enclosure.]

PHILIP A. HART,
MARLOW W. Cook.

44 SENATORS REQUEST PRESIDENT'S INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL LUNCH CRISIS

SEPTEMBER 9, 1971.

The PRESIDENT,

The White House,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: We are writing you out of a deep concern regarding the purpose of proposed school lunch regulations issued by the Department of Agriculture on August 13, 1971. The proposed regulations concern the use of federal funds to carry out the mandate of Public Law 91-248 which provides that “any child who is a member of a household which has an annual income not above

the applicable family size income level set forth in the income poverty guidelines shall be served meals free or at a reduced cost." Thus, the real test of the adequacy of the proposed new regulations is whether or not they will make it possible for the states and localities to meet the obligations and requirements which Public Law 91-248 imposes upon them.

After careful study and analysis, it is our judgment that the proposed regulations will not meet this basic test. Therefore, we find ourselves in agreement with the unanimous conclusion of the State Directors Section of the American School Food Service Association that the proposed regulations in their present form pose a very real threat to the continued progress of the National School Lunch Program.

If these regulations are not altered we believe the following events will occur. Many schools will be forced to eliminate Child Nutrition Programs. There will be further hardships to the nation's economy through unemployment and reduced consumption of raw resources such as food and equipment. Absenteeism, dropouts, and apathetic students will negate the benefits of the multi-billion dollar investment for public and private schools. And finally, and most important, there will continue to be hungry children in America's schools.

The adverse effect of the proposed regulations is compounded by the fact they were announced only three weeks before school was to open, creating chaos in the states. The anticipated loss to the states in the 1971-72 school year under the 35 cent reimbursement rate set by the proposed regulations, as compared to what the states would have received under the rates instituted by the Department of Agriculture last March, will run into millions of dollars. For example, the state directors have estimated Missouri will lose $4,000,000; California $9,000,000; Massachusetts $3,240,000; Ohio $5,565,000; Oregon $1,476,175; Tennessee $2,772,000; Georgia $4,100,000; West Virginia $2,661,300; and Florida $6,916,668. The states cannot make up this loss from state or local funds and will have no alternative but to reduce planned participation to stay within the limitation of available funds. Therefore, many needy and eligible children will go without school lunches.

Certainly, this was not the intent of Congress when it passed Public Law 91-248, nor your intent when signing it into law on May 14, 1970.

In regard to the School Breakfast Program, the proposed regulations have not only placed a limitation on the expansion of this program but have also precipitated a situation where several states will be forced to cancel the School Breakfast Program this school year. In the past, the Department of Agriculture has set a precedent in that many states in 1970-1971 used Section 32 funds for breakfast expansion. These funds were provided as a bloc grant to be used where needed in the individual states for expanding food programs to eligible needy children. However, the proposed regulations have made no provisions for continuing the authority to transfer such funds from Section 32 to the School Breakfast Program.

In addition to this matter of transfer of Section 32 funds, there is another important question which needs to be answered in regard to the Breakfast Program. According to Public Law 92-32 (Section 2), the Department of Agriculture is authorized to use $25 million for the School Breakfast Program. Only $18.5 million, however, has been allocated to the states. A memorandum of September 1 from the Department stated that the remaining $6.5 million will be allocated only to those states, "demonstrating the need for these funds to maintain their program at the April level." The response from several state directors has strongly indicated that there is a need for this $6.5 million to be allocated immediately. For example, in the State of Kentucky, the Breakfast Program will need to be cancelled at the beginning of October unless more money is allocated. In the reality that cancellations will occur, we implore that there be a reconsideration by the Department of Agriculture to transfer Section 32 funds to the Breakfast Program and to immediately allocate the remaining $6.5 million of the authorized $25 million to those states who face a possibility of cancelling their Breakfast Programs.

We, therefore, request that the proposed regulations be withdrawn and be replaced with regulations that would provide for a maximum reimbursement rate of 48 cents from Section 11; a maximum reimbursement rate of 12 cents from Section 4 for free and reduced price lunches; and guaranteed reimbursement from Section 4 of 5 cents for generally assisted lunches. We also suggest that the regulations pertaining to the use of Section 32 funds allow an immediate

allotment of these funds for free or reduced priced lunches to all states based on need accompanied by transfer authority. In this way we could be certain that the funds Congress made available to the Secretary under this authority would be fully utilized.

We further suggest that before any proposed regulations are published that they be submitted to the National Advisory Council, created by Public Law 91248, and the State Directors Section of the American School Food Service Association in order that these regulations could be instituted with the greatest degree of corporation so that any further delays in the implementation of the intent of Public Law 91-248 may be avoided.

Respectfully,

George McGovern, South Dakota; Philip A. Hart, Michigan; Marlow W. Cook, Kentucky; Charles McC Mathias, Jr., Maryland; Vance Hartke, Indiana; Charles H. Percy, Indiana; Alan Cranston, California; Edward W. Brooke, Massachusetts; Abraham Ribicoff, Connecticut; Richard S. Schweiker, Pennsylvania; John McClellan, Arkansas; Walter Mondale, Minnesota; John Tunney, California; Gale McGee, Wyoming; Robert Byrd, West Virginia ; Quentin Burdick, North Dakota; Howard Cannon, Nevada; Claiborne Pell, Rhode Island; Henry Jackson, Washington; Frank Church, Idaho; Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts; Adlai Stevenson, Illinois; Frank Moss, Utah; Edmund Muskie, Maine; Birch Bayh, Indiana; Lawton Chiles, Florida; Harold Hughes, Iowa; Thomas Eagleton, Missouri; Harrison Williams, New Jersey ; William Spong, Virginia; Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin; Joseph Montoya, New Mexico; Alan Bible, Nevada; Hubert Humphrey, Minnesota; Fred Harris, Oklahoma; Daniel Inouye, Hawaii; Ernest Hollings, South Carolina; Warren Magnuson, Washington; Stuart Symington, Missouri; Clifford Case, New Jersey; William Saxbe, Ohio; James Pearson, Kansas; Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma; and Mark Hatfield, Oregon.

"Got To Teach 'Em The Value Of A Dollar"

--copyright 1971 by Herblock in The Washington Post. September 9. 1971

[The Providence (R.I.) Evening Bulletin, Sept. 10, 1971]

CURB ON LUNCHES HITS 56,500 IN RHODE ISLAND

By C. Fraser Smith

Governor Licht expressed dismay today over the denial of free or reduced price lunches to 56,500 Rhode Island school children as a result of proposed new Department of Agriculture directive.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Clifford M. Hardin, the governor said the school lunch program here is beset by confusion and uncertainty. And he offered the specific consequences of the new regulations.

At least 56,500 school children in Rhode Island who were expected to come under the program this school year would not be able to participate.

Of these 35,500 would have been embraced by an expansion of the program to an additional 100 schools. The remaining 21,000, the governor said would be denied participation because the state cannot afford to make them eligible for the program this year, even though they attend schools where lunches are served. Other elements of the regulations which severely limit the reimbursement rates that can be paid could lead some school districts to abandon their lunch programs altogether, some school lunch officials are predicting.

The governor said, "I cannot believe that this is what the President had in mind when he pledged in December of 1969 to provide a school lunch to all eligible children."

"I cannot believe this is what the Congress intended when it designed the National School Lunch Act. I cannot believe that any parent in our nation would approve of this type of retrenchment."

A reflection of how confused and uncertain the situation is comes from Mrs. Maureen O'Connell, director of the state's school lunch program. Mrs. O'Connell said she received encouraging reports which indicate there may be an increase in the level of federal assistance Rhode Island will get this year.

She said she plans to operate the lunch program under last year's guidelines until she is told officially that the new ones are in force. This includes, she said, feeding the 21,000 children Governor Licht says cannot be fed under the proposed regulations.

A Department of Agriculture spokesman in Washington, however, would not give support to her optimism. The spokesman said there have been no official changes in the proposed new regulations, although he acknowledged they are being studied at this time.

The new directives, which sharply limit flexibility in the use of federal funds, are said to be part of President Nixon's anti-inflationary program. They are designed to keep about 100 million dollars out of circulation.

A complex web of regulations has been designed to do this job, according to one local expert in the school lunch program, Jay Lipner. Mr. Lipner, who was assigned to Rhode Island under a special Office of Economic Opportunity grant, returned yesterday from a hearing on this problem in Washington.

He said he continues to feel that the effect of the new regulations goes beyond anything anyone in state government has yet come to grips with. He believes the regulations make it virtually impossible for any school district to serve lunches without suffering a loss.

But Mr. Lipner believes a substantial part of the burden must be borne, under federal law, by the state. He was referring particularly to the 21,000 children who were made eligible for the program when the Department of Agriculture raised the eligibility level from $3,720 to $3,940 of annual family income in June of this year. The eligibility of these children cannot be delayed, he said.

"There is no discretion," he said. "The law says any child with an income below $3,940 shall be served a free lunch."

He agreed that this regulation, coupled with the loss of various funds normally available, whipsaws the state, raising eligibility on the one hand while dropping reimbursements on the other.

Rhode Island, he said, is likely to be one state which will get more money from the federal government than it can spend. The reason for this is that, while it receives money on the basis of its population, its program achieves relatively low participation-49th in the nation, he said.

State officials must not count on the additional funds to bail them out, however, he said. In the first place, the amount probably would be too low. Most important, the law says that federal funds must be returned to the government if under the formula, it exceeds 35 cents for every free or reduced price lunch.

"There is no way that any state can pay more than 35 cents per lunch and nobody understands it," he says.

Under the law, school lunch directors may pay five cents reimbursement to local school districts for every lunch served. They may pay 30 cents for every free and reduced price lunch. States are obligated to contribute a small portion as well.