Schools may get state funding for nutrition programs

BUFFALO — Like many other districts in the state, Johnson County School District No. 1 has budgeted thousands of state dollars to support its nutrition program for the 2025-26 school year.

However, because the state does not fund district nutrition programs, those funds are being pulled from other designated line items in the general fund. 

Both the state and districts agree that nutrition impacts student learning, and that food service programs are essential for some children who would go hungry without them. Even so, debate has gone on for years on whether it’s the state’s responsibility to subsidize school meal programs.

Change may be coming for the school funding model, however, which has district business manager Connie Gay hopeful that fewer funds will have to be transferred out of the general fund to support food service.

Though the state has appealed the ruling, First Judicial District Judge Peter Froelicher ruled earlier this year in a lawsuit filed by the Wyoming Education Association that the state has unconstitutionally underfunded public education in the state. In his ruling, Froelicher agreed with the WEA that the state must fund schools’ food service programs.

This year, the district has budgeted to transfer $400,000 of its about $21.23 million funding guarantee to support food service in the district.

“We’re hoping with the lawsuit that number goes down,” Gay said during the last school board meeting.

Other districts that joined the WEA’s lawsuit shared that they, too, use general fund dollars to subsidize their food service programs. 

For example, Laramie County School District No. 1, the largest school in the state, uses about $1.3 million of its general fund to subsidize the food service program, according to Froelicher’s decision.

The decision came at a pivotal time for the school funding model, as the Wyoming Legislature began the funding model recalibration process this year, as it does every five years. This process is meant to adjust the model so that districts are adequately funded to educate students.

In July, the Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration met for the first time this year to discuss the process and hear from consultants. The committee is expected to put forth a recalibration bill for the next legislative session in 2026, which all legislators will then review and potentially amend and vote on.

One of the reasons the state has argued against funding nutrition programs is that school districts can opt into the National School Lunch Program. As part of the federal program, participating schools receive cash subsidies for each reimbursable meal they serve. In exchange, those schools must serve lunches that meet federal meal requirements and offer the lunches at a free or reduced price to eligible children.

Some schools in the state have opted out of the National School Lunch Program. 

For example, Newcastle Middle School and Newcastle High School in Weston County School District No. 1 opted out of the program, according to reporting from the News Letter Journal. The change was made to allow for more diverse food offerings and may lead to district savings.

Johnson County, however, is a part of the program – though the amount it is federally reimbursed doesn’t cover the costs to provide meals.

That isn’t uncommon. 

Based on the School Nutrition Association 2024-25 school year report, 62.6% of food service directors surveyed said the national school lunch and breakfast programs reimbursement rates were not sufficient to cover the cost of producing a breakfast and 67.4% said they were not sufficient to cover the costs of producing a lunch.

Johnson County increased lunch prices by about 8% and breakfast prices by about 6.5% last year, but even then, the price that students pay for their meal doesn’t cover the cost to provide it. The prices that districts can charge and how much they can increase those costs each year is regulated as part of the National School Lunch Program.

Rising food prices motivated the increase last year, district leaders said at the time. In other conversations, Gay said that the cost of equipment and staff salaries have also increased operating costs.

Despite this, the district opted not to increase meal prices this year, Gay said at a school board meeting while discussing the fiscal year 2025-26 budget.

“We’re at this stage where we’d really need to increase that a lot … to offset (costs),” Gay said. “And we really wanted to wait. We looked at all the pieces, we evaluated it all, and really said, ‘Let’s wait and see what comes out of the lawsuit.’”

This story was published on August 7, 2025.