Dougherty schools plan task force as SNAP changes raise concern over free meals

ALBANY— The Dougherty County School System plans to create a task force to help families retain food assistance and navigate new reporting requirements as district officials warn that declining SNAP participation could eventually affect the federal provision that allows every student to eat free at school.

Superintendent Kenneth Dyer announced the plan Monday during his report to the Dougherty County Board of Education. He said the district intends to help parents understand benefit requirements, find work or job training, and complete required reporting online.

“I don’t believe people are losing their benefits because their financial situation has improved significantly,” Dyer said. “I think they’re losing the benefits because they’re not doing the reporting that’s required. So the needs are still there.”

Dougherty County schools participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision, which allows eligible high-poverty school systems to serve breakfast and lunch to all students without collecting individual household meal applications.

The federal reimbursement calculation depends on the share of students who are directly certified for free meals through their participation in programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Dyer said a substantial drop in that directly certified population could weaken the basis for the district’s universal meal program. He did not say Monday that free meals are ending or identify a date when the district might become ineligible.

“If our direct certification goes down, then we no longer qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision, so no longer do all of our students eat free,” he said, describing the potential consequence.

The concern, Dyer said, is that children could lose nutritional assistance at home while a decline in family enrollment also affects how the school district is reimbursed for meals.

The district plans to educate families about work, training and reporting requirements and connect them with employment and training opportunities. Dyer said online reporting may be one of the barriers preventing eligible families from maintaining assistance.

“We hope that we’ll be able to maintain their benefits so that our children won’t go hungry because of a lack of government assistance,” he said.

Dyer presented the issue as part of the school system’s federal legislative priorities. The district also is advocating for expansion of prekindergarten, changes to Georgia’s school funding formula, an extension of the teacher pay scale and renewed state contributions toward employee health insurance costs.

The superintendent cited a sharp decline in SNAP enrollment nationally and in Georgia following changes enacted in the federal budget law. Several figures and portions of the eligibility rules were unclear in the meeting transcript, and the district did not provide its current direct-certification percentage or quantify how far it is from a level that would affect meal reimbursement.

The timing matters because community eligibility is not based simply on whether some families lose SNAP. Federal rules apply a multiplier to the district’s identified-student percentage to determine the share of meals reimbursed at the free rate. District-level participation also may continue even if reimbursement changes, depending on the calculation and available local funding.

Dyer did not provide a launch date, membership list or budget for the task force. He said district officials had discussed the effort for several months and again Monday morning.

The task force will be intended to prevent eligible families from losing assistance because they cannot find work or training, misunderstand the requirements or fail to complete the necessary documentation, he said.