SALT LAKE CITY — Utah families continue to be plagued by school meal debt.
DONATE: Click here to donate to help erase student lunch debt in Utah
In 2023, I conducted research and found nearly $2,000,000 in unpaid lunch bills statewide.
After filing public records requests with each of the state’s 41 school districts again this year, I found the debt ballooned to $2,800,000 – an increase of more than $870,000.
FULL DATA: Take a look at school meal debt data district by district
“It doesn’t surprise me that the number of unpaid lunches are increasing,” said Ginette Bott, the president and CEO of Utah Food Bank. “Our families are struggling to make ends meet.”
Through her work at the food bank, Bott sees how the issue of food insecurity continues to grow as the facility distributes millions of pounds of food every year.
“This has been building and building and building,” Bott said. “At some point, we had hoped we’d see a plateau, and that hasn’t happened. The numbers continue to increase and it's really frightening.”
Efforts to help families struggling with school meal debt failed during Utah’s 2024 legislative session.
Some would like to see more action taken at the federal level.
“Families are really struggling now,” said Crystal Fitzsimons, director of child nutrition at the Food Research Action Center. “Increased housing costs, increased food costs, it really is putting the squeeze on a lot of families.”
She points to extremely stringent federal requirements to qualify for free or reduced price school meals as contributing to the issue.
“We provide textbooks, we provide busing, we provide the support that kids need in order to excel in school and food is really an important part of making sure kids are able to learn and focus and concentrate in the classroom,” Fitzsimons said.
While the lunch debt issue is limited to schools, those working to find solutions to food insecurity believe it is a window into a much larger issue.
“If people don’t recognize there is a problem, then they don’t recognize they need to help fix it,” Bott said.
