Roxanne Blais, back left, and Karen Durisko serve lunch to students at Lisbon Community School in February 2025. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer)

Maine remains committed to offering free school meals for all students, but that program could get harder to fund under short- and long-term cuts to federal nutrition benefits.

“The good news is not much has changed immediately with free school lunch in Maine. This year, all kids can go to school and receive breakfast and lunch at no cost, no questions asked,” said Anna Korsen, deputy director of Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit focused on ending childhood hunger in Maine.

“The bad news is that the (Trump) administration and Congress did pass a bill that will impact food access for kids outside of school and will, eventually, have an impact on federal funding to fund school meals, which will impact Maine’s school meals-for-all policy down the line,” she added.

Maine was one of the first states to begin offering universal free school lunch after pandemic-era funding expired in 2021. But the state doesn’t shoulder that cost alone — it receives federal reimbursements based on the number of students who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. That means any reduction in federal funds would leave Maine to cover the difference.

During the latest school year, the state received about $67 million in federal funding for school meal reimbursements. That’s 56% of the total cost of providing free school lunches to every student statewide.

One way the federal government provides money for school meals is through the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, which allows entire districts in low-income areas to offer federally reimbursed no-cost lunch if more than 25% of students qualify under other programs. But those programs include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which fewer Americans will be eligible for under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed this July.

The Republican-backed bill, which became law without support from any member of Maine’s congressional delegation, includes a $186 billion cut to federal spending on SNAP, a program that provides monthly food benefits to more than 170,000 Mainers.

Shortly before the bill passed, Maine’s Legislature committed to funding the free lunch program for the next two years through an increased investment of almost $6 million.

Language from a bill sponsored by Sen. Mike Tipping was also incorporated into the budget. It requires schools to maximize the amount of federal reimbursement funds that they can receive for school lunches, and the Maine Department of Education to inform districts about those options. About 120 Maine districts participate in the CEP, although more than 400 are eligible.

Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, speaks in favor of his bill to continue funding free school meals for all students at the Maine State House’s Hall of Flags in Augusta in April 2025. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

A spokesperson for the Maine DOE said the department has not yet received federal guidance about any changes to the qualification process, but is continuing to monitor the situation.

Earlier versions of the congressional bill would have had much more of an impact on school nutrition access, including a $12 billion cut to school lunch funding and raising the threshold for the Community Eligibility Provision. Those changes could have increased Maine’s SNAP obligation by $60 million annually, Gov. Janet Mills wrote in an April letter to Maine’s congressional delegation. At a press conference at the time, she said Maine, “cannot pick up the tab if the federal government cuts billions of dollars from school meal programs.”

The deepest cuts were not included in the final version of the bill, but Maine will still see impacts.

The immediate effect of that final bill, said Anna Korsen with Full Plates Full Potential, will be on refugee and asylum seeker families, who were previously eligible for SNAP but will be kicked off the program under the new law. There are also new work requirements that will slash benefits for an estimated 2.4 million Americans, including 32,000 Mainers.

Those changes have implications for the Community Eligibility Provision. Korsen said that program reduces the administrative burden on both families and schools by automatically enrolling students who are otherwise eligible for SNAP or MaineCare.

“But when we have cuts to SNAP and MaineCare coming down the line that will impact these kids and these families, that’s also going to impact how much federal funding the state will receive to support school nutrition, and to support Maine’s school meals-for-all policy,” Korsen said.

Larger consequences could come in 2028, when more of the cost burden of SNAP will shift to states for the first time. Currently, states only cover administrative costs for the program.

“There’s just going to be a big cost shift, meaning extra burden on the state budget, and that could impact programs like school meals for all,” Korsen said.