The federal Summer EBT program has bipartisan support; the $7 million in funding included in the state budget covers administrative costs to the state.
Image Credit: Gov. Bill Lee / Facebook
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.
By Anita Wadhwani [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday adopted a budget that will allow the state to resume participation in a federal program that aided in feeding 700,000 low-income children during the summer months before Gov. Bill Lee opted out in 2024.
The state budget for next year now includes a $7 million line item to help the state pay the administrative costs associated with the Summer EBT program. The program in past years has distributed $84 million in federal dollars to families with children while school is out.
The funding comes too late for this year. A smaller pilot program launched by Lee will fund $3 million in food distribution to children this summer. Last year the program reached 18,000 kids in a limited number of counties.
The appropriation drew rare bipartisan support during an otherwise contentious debate about spending priorities contained in the now-approved $58.3 billion state budget.
Rep. Michael Hale, a Republican from Smithfield, recounted his family having endured hard times as a boy, when he had to sell a milking cow that he had raised to help his parents put food on the table. He called the legislation “personal to me.”
“We’ll be able to help 700,000 kids that will pull $90 million of federal dollars into the state of Tennessee. I can’t say thank you enough,” he said.
Rep. Bo Mitchell, a Nashville Democrat, likewise praised the funding, but took the opportunity to criticize the outgoing governor, whose two terms in office come to an end early next year. Lee’s decision to forgo federal funding left kids in Mitchell’s district without access to summer food aid.
“I hope the guy down on the first floor is watching and listening, because this is a message for him,” Mitchell said, referring to Lee.
“I hear he wants to know what his legacy is. I’m gonna let him know what his legacy is. His legacy is to have children, poor children go hungry in this state, so rich kids can go to private school.”
Mitchell’s dig was aimed at the inclusion of $271 million in next year’s budget to expand a pilot private school voucher program to 35,000 more kids, a policy criticized by Democrats as transferring taxpayer spending on public schools to private learning institutions.
The $7 million allocated for Summer EBT funding does not guarantee the state will resume participation in 2027. The decisions are made by state administrations and approved by the federal government.
But a separate effort by a pair of rural Republican lawmakers would add a legal mandate for the state participate in the summer food program. The bill (HB1835/SB1911) has received wide bipartisan support thus far and is expected to be taken up next week.
Lee withdrew Tennessee’s participation in the Summer EBT program in 2023, citing administrative costs to the state of about $5 million.
The decision has drawn pushback from county mayors, child advocates, lawmakers and others across the state. Nearly one in five Tennessee kids – about 285,000 in total – are at risk of hunger in the state, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.
