Boozman: States need more flexibility in nutrition bill

LITTLE ROCK — States need to be given more flexibility in how they administer child nutrition programs as the funding bill comes up for renewal this fall, U. S. Sen. John Boozman said Friday.

The Republican lawmaker from Rogers said he was confident Congress would reauthorize or temporarily extend the Child Nutrition Act before the measure expires on Sept. 30. Boozman sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which takes up the legislation.

The five-year legislation funds a host of programs, including summer meals and national school lunches. After touring a summer feeding program at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library in Little Rock, Boozman said the law needs to allow more flexibility in how children are served through similar summer programs.

“There’s all of these different rules about what we call congregant feeding so the kids have to come to a particular center as opposed to you taking the food out to kids scattered in different areas,” Boozman told reporters. “That’s particularly hard in rural areas.”

Boozman said another change he’s interested in is allowing the use of electronic benefit transfer cards for purchasing food for children during the summer.

“We’d like to have flexibility,” Boozman said. “We’d like to make it such that the in-school feeding that goes on during the school year, there’s a lot more seamless transition into the summer programs we’re seeing here.”

Advocates said the type of flexibility Boozman endorsed would help programs reach more children.

“I think in a place like Arkansas, it’s very important because of the rural nature of the state and we have thousands of kids who aren’t being served by the program because regulations associated with congregant feeding,” said Patty Barker, director of the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign, who toured the library’s feeding program with Boozman.