ago announced new school lunch regulations that critics say would bar some two million children from free or reduced-price lunches.

The Senate measure, approved by a vote of 75 to 5, directs the Administration to borrow money from a special Agriculture Department fund derived from import duties on farm products.

Under the Senate measure, this would enable the Federal Government to increase its payment for free or reduced-priced lunches from 35 cents to 46 cents. A similar measure has been introduced in the House and may reach the floor within several weeks.

The lopsided Senate vote reflected widespread complaints from school administrators over the Agriculture Department's allotments formula, announced in late August, just weeks before most schools opened.

In fixing the Federal allotment to the states at 35 cents a meal, Agriculture Department officials said this was the maximum available under the $615-million voted by Congress for the year that began July 1.

Congressional critics of the Administration's cutback in school lunch allotments complained that Congress had voted every penny that the Agriculture Department had said it should have to feed the needy.

The move to force the Administration to increase the allotment was led by Senator Herman E. Talmadge, Democrat of Georgia, who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Terming it "emergency legislation," Senator Talmadge said it was essential to relieve "chaos, consternation and confusion in school lunch programs across the country."

NIXON VOWED RECALLED

He recalled that just last year Congress passed a law requiring that every needy school child in the nation receive a free or reduced price lunch.

He also recalled that President Nixon, is signing that bill into law, "promised to put an end to hunger among American school children."

The Senate action was unusual in that it represented one of the few times that a legislative (or authorizing) committee had sought to appropriate funds. Under normal procedure, such funding originates in Senate or House appropriations committees.

Complaining that they have been bypassed, several members of the Senate Appropriations Committee opposed the Talmadge measure. They said their own committee planned to bring out a supplemental appropriations bill within several weeks to increase funds for school lunches.

Dismissing these arguments, Senator Warren G. Magnuson, Democrat of Washington, commented: "When you're hungry, you're hungry. You can't wait until some bureaucrat sends letters back and forth."

SURPLUS IN FUND

The money that the Senate ordered the Administration to borrow from the import duty fund would be paid back later through a supplemental appropriation. The import duty fund now has about $300-million in what is called "carry-over" money, not earmarked for other uses.

In addition to the extra 11-cent allotment for free or reduced-priced lunches, the Senate voted to increase from 5 cents to 6 cents the Federal allotment for all school lunches, including those fully paid by students.

Estimates of the cost of the increased allotments range anywhere from $100million to $200-million.

Voting against the Talmadge resolution were Allen J. Ellender, Democrat of Louisiana who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee; Milton R. Young, Republican of North Dakota, ranking Republican on that committee; George D. Aiken and Robert T. Stafford, Republicans of Vermont; and Roman L. Hruska, Republican of Nebraska.

[The New York Times, Oct. 3, 1971]

LUNCHES FOR HUNGRY CHILDREN

The 75-to-5 vote in the Senate to provide more Federal money for school lunches should be a prod to the Administration to fulfill its pledges to banish hunger among America's schoolchildren.

58-854-71-pt. 7-11

An allowance of 35 cents to provide each needy pupil with a nourishing meal is preposterous in this period of high costs. Even the new Senate-approved standard of 46 cents is pitifully low.

The Senate's indignation at the gulf between Administration promises and performance in combating hunger in the schools prompted it to elbow aside its own Appropriations Committee and vote to "borrow" upward of $100 million from surpluses in an agricultural import-duty fund. The justification for this unorthodox procedure was well stated by Senator Magnuson of Washington: "When you're hungry, you're hungry. You can't wait until some bureaucrat sends letters back and forth.

The nation's children will be more adequately fed if the House shows similar impatience.

[The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 7, 1971]

ADMINISTRATION TO LIFT SCHOOL LUNCH FUND $135 MILLION BUT TIGHTENS ELIGIBILITY RULES

WASHINGTON-The Nixon administration, retreating before charges that it's refusing to feed low-income children, said it will increase its spending for free and reduced-price school lunches $135 million in the current school year.

At the same time, Assistant Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng said lunch eligibility standards were being tightened, a move that critics said would continue to keep hundreds of thousands of youngsters in higher-income states from participating in the program.

The latest change in school lunch policy is incorporated in a revised version of Agriculture Department regulations to be published shortly in The Federal Register. When the original version of the regulations was proposed in August, state and local lunch administrators protested that it would hold Washington's school feeding contribution at a level lower than they had expected and possibly force an end to free and reduced-price meals in many areas.

Under the final regulations, the basic federal cost of all lunches served continues to be a minimum of five cents. For free and reduced-price meals, though. Agriculture will pay a minimum of 40 cents additional, or 10 cents more than was called for in the initial proposal. The new figures would hold Washington's share of the average school lunch cost at about the levels of last year, instead of allowing that share to decline, as the administration had intended. The Agriculture Department estimates that in the fiscal year ended last June 30, Uncle Sam picked up about 33% of the 60-cent cost of an average lunch, state children accounted for the remaining 44%.

Mr. Lyng estimated that the increase in reimbursement rates will raise the cost of the federal school lunch program to about $750 million in the current fiscal year, about 40% more than last year. The additional funds will enable the program to reach eight million needy children with free or reduced-price meals, Mr. Lyng said. This will be nearly one million more than the department first estimated, on the basis of the regulations as they originally were written. Agriculture has enough funds to start spending at the higher level immediately but probably will go to Congress later in the year for supplemental funds, Mr. Lyng added.

Whether Congress will be satisfied with these plans isn't certain. Last week, the Senate, by a 75-5 margin, voted to impose on the administration a more generous formula for distributing school lunch funds than it originally proposed. The Senate formula is close to the one announced by Mr. Lyng, except that its basic contribution would be one cent higher, or six cents, adding $41 million more to federal costs, the Agriculture Department figures.

The House Education subcommittee wound up its hearings on school lunch regulation yesterday. Subcommittee Chairman Roman D. Pucinski (D., Ill.) and Carl D. Perkins (D., Ky.), chairman of the parent committee, both favor House passage of the Senate bill.

However, the major question now appears to be whether the House committee will challenge the Agriculture Department's new restrictions on the approximately 30 higher-income states, which define poverty at an income level higher than the one used by the department in its lunch regulations. More than 500,000 youngsters in these states, many from welfare families, who were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches on this basis last year, thus will be excluded this year.

Kenneth Schlossberg, staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, who was present at the briefing by Mr. Lyng, said that some one million youngsters will be frozen out of the program by the changed regulation. "The Nixon administration is giving $135 million with one hand and taking away almost as much with the other," he contended.

This may be an overstatement, but the department doesn't have an estimate of its own to refute it. Mr. Lyng could only estimate that the federal cost of serving needy children in the 30 states last year amounted to $20 million to $30 million. A school lunch aide acknowledged, however, that, because the program had the potential or reaching more children this year than last, the federal saving through tighter poverty guidelines could be substantially larger than that figure in 1971-72.

[The Washington Post, Oct. 7, 1971]

U.S. RETAINS LUNCH SHARE, CUTS 584,000 OFF PROGRAM

By Nick Kotz

The Nixon adminstration, bowing to congressional pressure, yesterday decided not to reduce federal contributions to the free school lunch program. But at the same time, it tightened eligibility standards, thus eliminating 584,000 children from the program.

Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Richard Lyng announced that the government will pay about 45 cents of the cost of a free or reduced-price lunch for poor children. The Senate last week had voted overwhelmingly to reject an administration plan to drop the federal contribution to 35 cents.

However, the government trimmed the rolls of children eligible for the free lunch program by limiting federal benefits to children from families with annual income of less than $3,940 for four persons.

The 1970 National School Lunch Reform Act stipulated that schools in the program must provide meals free or at a token cost (5 to 20 cents) to all children whose families met the $3,940 poverty-income guideline. But states were also permitted to establish more generous guidelines. Forty states did, including Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

These states no longer will get special federal funds to continue providing free lunches to an estimated 584,000 children from families with more than $3,940 income. The free lunches will continue only if state and local governments pick up the full costs.

A New York State school lunch official said perhaps a majority of New York City children will lose their free lunches.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, four-member families with $4,400 to $4,650 annual income, had been eligible for benefits, depending on the number of a family's children in school.

In Virginia, Arlington, Fairfax, and Falls Church provided free meals if a child's family had less than $4,940 income.

The District of Columbia gave free or reduced-price meals to children in families with less than $4,830 income.

All children, poor and non-poor alike, receive a partial federal subsidy of meals provided them under the National School Lunch Program set up in the 1940s. The federal government pays 5 cents in cash and 7 or 8 cents in surplus commodities towards the cost of all school lunches.

For example, the total actual cost of a Montgomery County School lunch is 68 to 73 cents. The child pays 45 or 50 cents, the federal government 13 cents, and the rest is made up in state or local funds. This applies to rich and poor children. But in the case of a poor child, the federal government now will pay 45 cents of the total cost.

Lyng said the federal government will pay $225 million in cash and $300 million in commodities towards the lunch costs of all children and an additional $500 million toward costs of free or reduced price meals for poor children.

The dispute in Congress involved the amount of the federal share of costs for free or reduced-price meals. The administration had planned to cut the average federal contribution, but now will raise it slightly over last year.

School lunch officials throughout the country had protested to Congress that the reduced federal payment would cripple their lunch programs.

Lyng said about 8 million poor children this year will receive free or reducedprice lunches.

An additional 16 million non-poor children participate in the program and benefit from the smaller federal subsidy.

Another 30 million school children are not in the national lunch program, either because they don't choose to buy lunch at school or because their school is not in the program.

Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition praised the administration for its decision to increase federal support of lunches for the poor, but said the change in eligibility requirements "robs a poor Peter to help a poor Paul."

The increased federal payments will cost an additional $135 million a year, but the government hopes to save about $47 million by its new restrictions on elibility. Sen. Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.), sponsor of the Senate resolution ordering the administration not to cut payments, said he was "gratified . . . that the Agriculture Department had now agreed to obey the law."

McGovern said the Agriculture Department was clearly violating the "letter and spirit" of the 1970 School Lunch Reform Act, which provided that states can set higher eligibility standards. He pointed to legislative history, in which memhers of Congress stressed that states could implement more lenient standards. Lyng, however, said yesterday that USDA can limit eligibility because the law calls for giving priority to the neediest children. Lyng said many states and school districts lack "fiscal restraint." He said one school district provided lowercost meals to children from families with less than $7,500 annual income.

Lyng said he opposes the concept of providing free school lunches to all children and that he believed many school districts were heading in that direction.

[The New York Times, Oct. 7, 1971]

U.S. INCREASES PUPIL LUNCH AID BUT TIGHTENS RULE ON ELIGIBILITY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6-Yielding to Congressional pressure, the Department of Agriculture today liberalized Federal payments to states under the school lunch program.

At the same time, however, the department issued a new restriction that critics estimate will eliminate about one million needy children from the program. Under the regulations made public by the department today, the Federal share of lunch program costs was increased from a proposed level of 35 cents a meal to 45 cents a meal, one cent short of the level approved by Congress last week.

The department first sought to revise regulations governing disbursement of school lunch program funds in mid-August. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Richard E. Lyng said then that the department would for the first time guarantee a minimum Federal reimbursement to states of 35 cents a lunch. Before this, there was no set reimbursement rate, and states could get up to 60 cents a meal back from the Government.

A period of 15 days was allowed for public comment on the proposed change. The department's original 35-cent proposal met with sharp criticism from at least 22 Congressmen and school lunch officials across the nation. These critics charged that the 35-cent rate-7 cents lower than the average rate paid last year-would necessitate massive cuts in the number of children receiving lunches.

Some of these same critics said today that the department's new stipulation, which provides that states must adhere to an income level of $3,940 a year in determining eligibility, would have the same result.

Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, and Representative Carl D. Perkins of Kentucky, both Democrats, estimated that one million children would be forced out of the program as a result of the new restriction.

Senator McGovern said about 40 states and the District of Columbia had used income levels higher than the official $3,940 Federal level to determine eligibility. In New York, for example, the level used to determine eligibility is $4,250, he said. In many other states the level is between $5,500 and $6,000, he said.

Mr. McGovern also said that heretofore all welfare recipients were eligible but that this would not be the case under the new regulation.

Phillip Olsson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Agriculture said the new restriction was aimed at halting a trend.

He said: "We have found that some school districts are raising their poverty levels so that more names can be added to lunch rolls, resulting in the Government paying for the entire program.

"In Newark for example, one district requested funds using a poverty level of $7,000," Mr. Olsson said.

Critics of the new regulation expressed concern that, unlike the other proposed regulation changes, it was not subject to a period of public comment.

Critics said this was a last-ditch effort by the department to stay within inadequate budget.

Senator McGovern said the move might even be illegal, but Mr. Olsson said it was within the department's prerogatives.

"We usually allow a period of public comment prior to finalizing regulations because we think it's a good idea, but in cases where we must add regulations at the last minute we waive this policy," he said.

The new regulation was imposed after the department failed to reach a compromise with Representative Perkins yesterday on a Federal share of costs somewhere between 37 cents and 45 cents.

[The New York Times, Oct. 8, 1971]

FUDGE FOR LUNCH

The administration is demonstrating a remarkable capacity for missing the point of the School Lunch Program. Congress has repeatedly made clear that it wants the low-income children of the Nation to have lunches available to them, but the Department of Agriculture, looking at budgets rather than children, keep resisting the intent of Congress. Last week the Senate voted to direct the Agriculture Department to reimburse the States more generously than the Department's formula, announced last summer, would allow. Overruling its own Appropriations Committee-a rare gesture in itself-the Senate authorized the temporary use of other departmental funds to expand the lunch program.

Now the Agriculture Department has increased its spending for free and reduced-price lunches but at the same time set a new, low eligibility standard of $3,940 a year for a family of four. At least 30 States permit children to participate although their families have incomes slightly higher than this. In New York, for example, the eligibility level is set at $4,250.

The effect of the Department's bureaucratic maneuver is to cut about 1 million needy children out of the lunch program. It is a direct blow at the Nation's working poor, who have already suffered worst from the inflation of recent years. The administration has shown how resourceful it is at fudging the hunger issue, but fudge does not make a satisfactory lunch.