“Healthy Schools” vs. Soda Tax: What’s at Stake
May 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Posted in kids, politics, school food, Wellness
Kids are not fungible. Or maybe they are?
A proposed tax on soft drinks to fund “Healthy Schools” legislation appears to be on shaky ground at best and may be dead on arrival. Meanwhile, social service advocates are engaged in a mad scramble to stave off cuts to services for the poor. While some members of the D.C. Council are talking about increasing taxes on the city’s wealthy to bridge the budget gap, Council Chairman Vincent Gray (D) is accused of hiding out in his office, muttering something about the need for a “365-day discussion” on taxes.
So where does that leave all the improvements in school food that Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) worked so many months to include in her “Healthy Schools” bill? The Council approved the bill unimously. But where are they when it comes time to actually pay the estimated $6.5 million annual cost for all those new wellnes initiatives?
Asked if there is a Plan B, an aide to Cheh says, “We’re still pushing the (soda) tax in some form and think we can make it work. Everything is very fluid at this point,” meaning no one is willing to say what will happen today when the Council votes on the city’s budget package.
This might be a good time to stop and reflect on what’s in danger of not being funded in the “Healthy Schools” program:
* An additional 10 cents for every breakfast served to children in D.C. public schools. Breakfast is universally free to all students who attend D.C. Public Schools, but currently not free in charter schools. The additional money could help improve food quality. Under Chartwells-Thompson, the giant food service company hired to provide D.C. Public Schools meals, children are served industrially processed convenience foods. Charter schools contract with individual catering companies, or cook their own food on site.
* To provide free breakfasts in charter schools, the city would pay an additional 30 cents for each breakfast served to students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on income.
* An additional 10 cents for lunch. This would supplement federal subsidies schools receive through national school meals programs. The federal government currently provides $2.68, for instance, for every fully-subsidized school lunch.
* Forty cents for all students who currently qualify for reduced-price lunch. The federal meals program recognizes three classes of students based on family income: those who qualify for free meals, those who pay a reduced price, and those who pay full price. This provision of “Healthy Schools” essentially would eliminate the “reduced price” category. Those students would receive meals free.
* Encourage breakfast by offering a morning meal in classrooms. To cover the cost of this initiative, public schools and charter schools would receive $7 for each student in schools where at least 40 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
* Five cents for every lunch that contains at least one component made from locally grown and unprocessed foods. “Healthy Schools” would, for the first time in D.C., promote sustainable local agriculture by paying schools to incorporate local products in school meals.
* Grants for schools that take steps to engage students in more physical exercise.
* Grants to encourage construction of gardens on school grounds.
* Construction of a central facility in the District to process and store local produce, and provide culinary job training.
Many provisions in “Healthy Schools” do not require extra funding, such as reducing sodium and eliminating trans fats from school food, or making food sold in vending machines healthier. Schools will be required to post the ingredients used in meals. Vendors will be required to identify the source of all produce served. Schools will also be required to provide at least 30 minutes for students to eat lunch. Over a five-year period, schools will be called upon to dramatically increase the amount of physical education they provide for students.
It’s a shame that “Healthy Schools” had to be linked with a tax on soft drinks at the last minute. Cheh had promised to find the money for “Healthy Schools” somewhere, but no one anticipated she would link her legislation with such a controversial tax measure just weeks before the Council took up the city’s budget. Is this Cheh’s version of a Hail Mary pass?
Although Cheh’s proposal to levy a tax of one cent per ounce on soft drinks is well-intentioned–providing an instant source of funds for “Healthy Schools” and to increase food access in underserved neighborhood, plus reducing consumption of sugary beverages among folks who least need the extra calories–they really are two separate animals and should be considered separately. The main objectives–better school food, increased access to good nutrition, more physical exercise, supporting local agriculture and school gardens–deserve to be funded in their own right, without becoming collateral damage in a brawl over taxing soda.
Anyone with a radio has heard the campaign the beverage industry is waging to deep-six the soda tax. This was entirely forseeable, and not the kind of battle that should be fought at the last minute with children’s well-being hanging in the balance. Local lawmakers hardly need additional political incentive to leave the city’s children in the lurch. Hopefully the soda tax will not poison the water for “Healthy Schools” permanently, and perhaps some sort of compromise will emerge. If not, the Council should find a way to fund “Healthy Schools” without a soda tax, and save the debate over sodas for another time.
Ed-
Great insight here, I’ll be posting this at Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen Facebook page to get some thoughts from her readers.
So sad that theoretically the more American’s that continue in unhealthy habits (drinking soda) the more funding this healthy school lunch endeavor will accumulate. A system like that is bound for failure. So sad this is an issue, but clearly not one large enough to gain full support with the funding necessary.