MANCHESTER, N.H. – Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig has sent a letter to New Hampshire’s Congressional Delegation asking for assistance on free and reduced lunches for students across the state.
Due to the pandemic, the Manchester School District has given every student access to free school lunches regardless of whether or not they had filled out eligibility paperwork for free or reduced cost school lunches. Due to that, as of Oct. 31, requests for free lunches are down by approximately 20 percent and reduced cost lunch requests are down by approximately three percent.
Craig noted that this change in eligibility paperwork has impacted the city’s differentiated aid under the state’s adequacy formula, a common occurrence across the state. In Manchester, the discrepancy is set to remove $3.6 million in aid for student lunches if nothing is done.
That aid discrepancy is one of three causes for an impending $9 million shortfall for the next fiscal year in the school district’s budget.