The Office of Health and Nutrition Services (OHNS) is excited to announce the Fiscal Year 2024 State School Aid Budget includes $160 million for the Michigan School Meals state reimbursement program. This will take immediate effect once the budget is signed by Governor Whitmer. All students in public schools that participate will be able to receive a breakfast and lunch at no cost for School Year 2023-2024.

Staff in OHNS have been preparing for this great news. Please be patient as we finalize details of the program. What is known right now is that if sponsors choose to participate, they will be required to:

• Provide reimbursable breakfasts and lunches at no cost to all enrolled Pre-K through grade 12 public school students.
• Adopt Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) on behalf of a single school, a group (or groups) of schools, or all schools in the participating entity, as applicable, in a manner that maximizes federal reimbursement.
• Make all efforts to maximize and implement policies to collect relevant family income information for the purposes of determining student eligibility for federal free or reduced cost meal reimbursement rates and CEP household information reports.
• Write off all outstanding student meal negative balances.

All sponsors that plan to participate in the Michigan School Meals Program will need to apply via the Fiscal Year 2024 Coordinated Application in NexSys. Updates to the application will occur during the month of July 2023 and sponsors will be able to elect the program starting in August 2023.  Please watch for more information on that process.

A Frequently Asked Questions document is available with initial information about Michigan School Meals state reimbursement program.

The Office of Health and Nutrition Service will host a Town Hall on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, at 2:00 pm EST.

Topic: OHNS Town Hall 

Date:  Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Time:  2:00 pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81576914659?pwd=d3I1OWJtUGZsT2JWeDhERUw2aGt3UT09

Passcode: 956369

Or Telephone:  USA 214 765 0479 US Toll    
                        USA 888 278 0296 US Toll-free  
                        Conference Code: 354950

Questions regarding this Bulletin may be directed to MDE-SchoolNutrition@michigan.gov.