children. 16 million children live in a household experiencing food insecurity. we don't want to worsen that problem. third is it administratively feasible? adopting a more time consuming documentation or verification system might prevent errors but could cost others by adding a step to the process and could spend more time determining school meal eligibility. fourth is it cost effective? information management systems could be very effective but might cost too much. as i noted it's critical that error reduction strategies not reduce access to school meals for children that need them. the best way to improve integrity is not through punitive policies but to continue sending a clear message to school nutrition officials that program accuracy is important and will be measured and federal officials will support them in implementing needed improvements. thank you very much. >> thank you very much.

thank you. do you think that a shift from the current verification process that emphasizes for cause verification would enhance the program integrity and secondly would it have a negative effect on access for eligible participants? >> no, i think they're again -- senator, there is a way to do it without aversely impacting people that truly deserve it and what we found in our work is for cause, that's the review of questionable applications. some school districts were not doing any for cause verifications of questionable applications. so there's definitely potential there to do that more consistently across school districts. i should add that's a usda requirement. school districts are required to conduct these type of reviews. any time we see that type of inconsistency that gives us some concern. >> i would like to know more about the point of service when

the child and the cafeteria worker do interact and determine how the meal will be paid. you have cited this in your statement as a step in which many errors do occur. can you walk us through what happens exactly at the point of service? i'm not an expert but cindy jones is and we are at a lot of points of error. so if you could point that out for me please. >> absolutely. it sounds like you've had a chance to visit school meal programs which is great. i hope if the rest of you haven't had the opportunity you'll take that soon. there's nothing like seeing it firsthand. >> we can lose a little weight there too. >> let me describe a typical scenario. there's a lot of variation. so you might have a cafeteria with a 30 minute lunch period. dozens if not hundreds of students coming through a line. sometimes there's choice about what they take. not always and when they have their meal on their tray they go to a cashier at the end of the

line. they need to check the meal to make sure that it's meeting nutrition standards and figure out who the child is to make sure that that meal is marked down in the right meal category. free reduced or paid. that's a process that has to happen very very quickly when you have lots of students waiting in line and it's only when they get through that process they get to eat. this is not a sophisticated interaction. we're talking about maybe 7 or 8-year-old and a cashier and it has to happen really fast and that does create opportunities for errors. there's also more innovative models that can make it easier for kids to get meals. for older students there might be a cart in the hallway where you can pick up a breakfast and take it to class. it makes it easier for students to eat and reduces errors related to what's in the meal because they're taking a prepackaged meal but that's a very fast transaction where you have to have a process of keeping track of it. meals are sometimes served in the classroom. the process is decentralized which means there's opportunities for error and you

need to react accordingly. >> well, thank you for that application. a question for you both is electronic data matching the method of additional verification that would be least burdensome to school food service providers and which of the other methods of improving program integrity that you recommend will cause the least additional burden? >> so data match as good used in different steps of the process. first there's the approval point where you can use data from snap everywhere and in certain states they're allowed to use medicaid data to automatically enroll kids. the application process has been a source of error so the fewer families have to go through that process the more that can be automatically enrolled the more you reduce opportunities for error. the program has been moving in that direction. over the last five years or so many more students are directly

certified. as a result even though there are more children in the free or reduced price category now than there were because of the recession schools have to process applications for 2.5 million fewer families. that's a great step forward. the other place where data can be used is at the verification stage. that's checking applications and that's where i think there's room to look at more data sources as they recommended. many families don't respond to that request and they lose benefits whether or not they're eligible. >> worried about the privacy issue. >> yes. >> i'm more than a little worried. but let me just say that i have a concern about holding states accountable to a different standard. three years and then we just got a report from the inspector

general of the food and nutrition service indicating and my figures are accurate here quoting from this study that was just out errors 1.9 billion school lunch errors 770 million school breakfast. we're not the pentagon or for that matter any other agency but that's a considerable amount of money and i don't know if either one of you have had access to that information or if you'd like to make a comment on that but it should be of concern to the committee. is the concern of the committee. >> a agree with you. the proper payments rate overall for the program is about 15.25%. good news is its declined slightly from last year assuming the data is reliable. at the same time close to a billion dollars were in

certification errors. >> i apologize for interrupting but i'm already overtime and we have a lot of people waiting but basically 1.9 billion school, it's my understanding that states are asked to audit every three years but this last report or the last report that we could come up with was clear back in 2005. that's been ten years. so i think we're holding t you know, the fns and federal component of this which of course is now playing a much stronger role to a different standard than that of the states and that's a concern to me. why ten years? >> so the reviews of districts do happen now every three years. the kind of report that you're talking about is the nationally representative study that usda does. it's a very indepth report where they interview households and

stand in cafeterias and make sure there's accuracy. that kind of report is very important and relatively costly and takes a long time to go but it provides the kind of information that can be very helpful to developing proposals for how to improve errors because you really get to the bottom of what's causing errors and what kind of errors are most prevalent and that allows you to design tailored solutions. thank you. in this area we juggle the desire and need to make sure that children that need and qualify for lunch and breakfast are getting it as opposed to those that should not be on the other hand we don't want to add additional cost to the local schools juggling between administrative costs and actually providing quality meals so we have a number of issues to

juggle. it's made a huge difference in michigan in schools to be more efficient and have more dollars going to feeding hungry children. but first, it sounded like you were saying that the usda has accepted your recommendations and are moving forward to make changes. is that right? >> yeah, absolutely. they agreed with all of our report recommendations and recently provided an update of steps they're taking to implemented them which is good news for the program. >> that's graechlt that's wonderful. again when we talk about program integrity measure which is are very porn they can have unintended consequences of removing children who actually should be getting food. can you show us what we have to improve payments and protecting access for children? what's the best way to do that?

>> well as we highlighted in our report we think you can attack this from various angles. obviously the verification process we think could be strengthened. you can do it in a way that's not going to adversely impact children truly in need. the school districts are reluctant to do this because of lack of training, expertise. >> is it extra cost for them in the kind of things that you're talking about? >> it would impose some additional cost but in the end the net result would be you're freeing up funds in the program. so from a cost benefit standpoint it would be effective but that's usda's call. they would have to do more additional studies. >> talking about the verification steps and additional administrative costs and how we balance that, obviously we want integrity in

these programs and want every penny to go to children that need it but even automated tools can be cost prohibited for schools on tight budget. do you believe it could come at the expense of improving meals? and when you look at the per meal reimbursement what funding do they get to cover administrative costs associated with meal programs versus investments in technology? because i think we really need to understand this so that we can do this right. >> at the school district level they get a per meal reimbursement and that has to cover all the costs associated with running the program. so it's buying the food. it's the staff to serve it and prepare the food and all the administrative prosetszs. there isn't a separate funding stream to cover buying a software system or putting more staff in place to do these kind

of checks. they're not available for food. at the federal level there had been grants to states to improve their technology systems and those seem to have been contributing to a reduction in that kind of error. that's been a great investment paying off. >> the chairman and i have been talking about the fact that particularly for very small schools. i went to school in one of those in northern michigan it can become particularly difficult and so we're interested in recommendations for small schools as well. >> i haven't visited enough schools yet but we're getting there and there's a tremendous difference in the school that cindy represents and other schools that are doing this.

they're doing a good job and then you go to rural small town america and i mean real rural and small town america. they simply cannot keep pace with the paperwork and et cetera, et cetera and the training, would certainly help out. they're doing the best they can. so this isn't a one size fits all. i know that's, you know obvious to everybody here but i wanted to underscore what he has said. i mean, we have some real challenges out there. >> >> i'm going to ask for one more question and for you as well. we know that simple errors on applications and this goes to how we do all of this for families is now in the school but we need to care from the families end of things in terms of what we are adding. simple errors are the cause of

improper payments. it's not just lack of reporting. if somebody makes a mistake they don't feel in a box. they do something that's simple but it creates that error that he is talking about. in some cases, errors result in children ending up having to pay for meals or they may not be paying for meals because of some simple error. so to help make the system more efficient and ensure all children receive meals what are some of the ways applications can be improved? the actual application? direct certification has been very successful. how can we better utilize the data matching to reduce errors so that we again, from the families are not penalizing a child because somebody didn't check a box?

>> there will always be children going through the application process. you need to have it be a simple understandable form. it can't be like other programs where you're sitting in an office sitting with a professional eligible worker that can ask a lot of follow up questions. typically the application goes home and families fill it out on their own without assistance and they may not know that you need to multiply weekly income by 4.3 to get your monthly income or who they're supposed to list in the household. it's clear that people have trouble understanding the application and in a usda study they found that out of the children that didn't get meals that they legitimately were eligible four three quarters of the time that was because the family had understated their income on the application. this is families that bothered to apply and qualified for the meals but they didn't get them because they misunderstood what was expected. usda just issued a brand new application that's much simpler than the old version and should be helpful in terms of eliciting

correct information and they're embarking on an electronic application which is promising for making it easier for families and schools to get the right information. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. i guess the question i would have would be do we have districts that -- do we have districts that you have knowledge of that are doing a much better job than the average, you know, in regard to the problem? or are there districts that we can learn from that we can then take their knowledge and push to the, you know to other districts? >> i'm sure there are but our scope was confined to the 25 school districts we examined in detail. there's thousands of school

districts across the nation. we didn't have the time or resources to visit all of those but we did get important insights from visiting the few we did examine in great detail. >> very good. >> with regard to direct certification the use of data from other programs usda does rank state performance. there's states doing a fabulous job. west virginia and kansas are examples of those. you'll have people on the next panel that can speak to that. michigan they have taken example of resources and made continuous improvements and got a performance bonus and are now directly certifying 100% of the kids they should be. there's great examples at the state and district level and usda is work on sharing the best practices so that others can learn. >> i'd like to acknowledge the importance of the application

process. i was on the school board for several years and the paperwork on these type of things, our poor special ed teachers that work so hard and the paperwork that they endure and the list goes on and on, i would like to throw my two cents in, that that's something -- that doesn't cost any money. there's something about government that we add to the burden. whether it's the irs or this or anything else so that's very important and hopefully we can work to remedy that. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for holding this hearing. this is an issue i care deeply about. i brought apples today. this is a half cup of apples i hope we can get in every school

lunch program across new york. this is a half cup for parents in the room this is not a lot of -- you brought your half cup i'm going to put these in the room. staff can have them. i had a pack. they're really good. so since we're talking about this issue of school meals the one issue that i want this committee to remember because it's so important is we shouldn't cut the standards. the chairman said 46 states applied for whole grain wavers. those are individual schools within 46 states but 90% of schools are complying so we're actually doing quite well in meeting the nutrition standards that we set aside in the last bipartisan bill on this topic. so i want to make sure that we don't cut the requirements specifically for the half cup of fruits and vegetables because if one in three kids are obese in this country what are we doing? these kids need to understand

they should be eating fruits and vegetables daily. they're an important part of how they grow and how they learn and the rate of obese adults in this country and again your statement about our military and having access to the men and women they need to be fit is a real concern concern. if we're cutting the standard for school meals the kids get the biggest hit. who suffers most financially? who loses the most business? itsz the farmers. i want to talk about the farmers and other states on this committee. that's a great school snack to have access to real melons. in mississippi, blueberries. kids love blueberries, kentucky blackberries. arkansas, one of the easiest most fun vegetables for kids to eat. sweet potatoes. we prefer them fried but they're

very good too. cherry farmers in nebraska. field greens in north carolina. watermelon in north dakota. peach growers in georgia and apple growers in new york. all of those farmers represented by this committee would be harmed if we reduced the standards for that half cup. if we cut fruits and vegetables from our school meals not only do the farmers suffer but i believe the kids suffer. my kids ben pit so much from having access to fresh fruits and vegetables every day and they love them. they know how good it is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables during their meals. i'm hoping we can focus specifically on how we keep these standards. now i know both of you are testifying specifically about how we can effect and change errors. so when i talk specifically about that for a question, in

your testimony, you mention that counting and claiming errors often result from busy lunchrooms where students have little time to select, pay for and eat their meals. many of these operational offers are current point of sale. should we consider making more resources available to reduce errors and improve program integrity. >> thank you. automated systems make the process much easier. you need to balance the costs involved with the imply fireworks kagss and error reduction but places using them report they do simplify the process tremendously for students and the school nutrition staff that have a lot of things they're juggling in the lunchroom so making that process more simple is a great way to go. >> you mentioned the bit about the community eligible and that we need to eliminate the need for meal applications completely and eliminate much of the potential error. what can we do to lower the

barriers to participation by eligible districts and schools? what are your top recommendations to go that? >> it's a new option that's working very very well right now it builds on those available to high quality schools. they would be finding the few children that don't qualify for free or reduced meals. the whole school qualifies. with community eligibility they rely exclusively on data from other programs so that again reduces errors and opportunities for error and in usda's report they found as expected that there were fewer errors in those schools so they're realizing what an advantage that can be and what they see is because they don't have to spend time on paperwork the savings on the

administrative side can be reinvested in meal quality and in serving all students at no charge. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the ranking member for having this hearing as well. you're both good to have us gather on these issues. we're grateful. i wanted to say first that we have two major concerns when we talk about these programs and about food insecurity. in pennsylvania we have not only a lot of children participating in both school lunch and school breakfast, fiscal year 14 over a million children in the school lunch program and about a little more than 346,000 in the school breakfast program but we have almost a half million children in poverty in our state.

this is of great urgency and concern that we get this right. i have always been a believer that these programs, just like a number of other programs or strategies can help us not only ensure that more children have measure of food security and get the nutrition they need. it can help them learn more. the second major concern we have of course is not only making sure these programs work for kids but making sure that they're administered in a way that's consistent with the expectations of taxpayers and use taxpayer dollars efficiently. so i appreciate the fact that you're bringing to us not only a diagnosis of where the problems are but also remedies of

improving most programs. i'll get to you in a moment on a broader question but i want to ask a specific question about the wic program. your firm budget and policy priorities just released a report with regard to new research linking prenatal and early childhood participation in wic with improved cognitive development as well as academic achievement. so kids whose moms are participating in the wic program while pregnant scored higher on assessment of medical development at age 2 than similar children whose mothers did not participate. so in light of this link between the wic program and cognitive development of the child and learn means earn connection, can you walk through the benefits of

wic and why we should focus on that as well? >> absolutely. it provides nutrition assistance for pregnant women and very young children. those are critical times for brain development as we heard earlier. there's a large body of research that shows that wic is successful in bringing participants, very important improvements. improvements in health and their nutrition. what they're eating eating healthier foods. improvement in breast feeding rates that are connections to preventive care higher immunization rates and new findings on the link to cognitive development. so that's ways in which participating in the program can help low income families and at this critical time so they're off to a better start. >> i appreciate that. could you walk through the four questions, questions we should consider when we're analyzing

these programs? . it helps to repeat things. >> absolutely. so does the proposal have a proven track record of reducing errors? and that's where all the research on this subject can be very helpful? will it maintain program access for the most vulnerable children. so of course when you're reducing error rates you don't want to have the unintended consequence of making it harder for kids that qualify for the meals and need them to get them and is it administratively feasible. there isn't a one size fits all solution and is it cost effective? will the error reduction be worth the cost involved in setting up the system. >> i want to ask you one more question and i may submit more

to the two of you. on this question of certification do you think that increasing participation in community eligible and indirect certification would help reduce proper payments? >> i believe it could if applied properly. we looked at the direct certification for 23 households. we found errors in a couple but in our discussions with usda officials and, that would greatly relieve the administrative burden that the school district level has potential for streamlining the entire process. i want to make sure that the initial certifications are being done directly. i should point out the proper payment rate is is much smaller than the improper payment rate in the school lunch program. that's a good way to go based on that comparison alone. >> thank you for the 45 extra seconds.

thank you senator casey. i want to thank the first panel. thank you so much. the first panel is now concluded -- i'm sorry. >> i apologize to you sir. >> thank you mr. chairman. i'm down here a long ways on the children's end of the table. appreciate you and ranking member holding this hearing today and as we do prepare to reauthorize the child nutrition legislation this coming year we need to take an objective and critical assessment of the programs and make sure that they're working in a deficient, effect iive and accountable manner

manner. i have a concern about the programs that were 15.8% and 23.1% respectively. improper payments total almost $2.7 billion for the 2013-2014 school year. no one in this room wants any child to go hungry. there's legitimate needs for assistance but when we have programs with error rates that are $2.7 billion just for one school year we simply have got to figure out how to put this money to better use do the current standards result in them being distributed wisely to the people that need it the most.

so just a couple of questions if i might i'd love to hear from the second panel too about the rejitty in the programs and the people out there on the front lines. i'd love to get a sense for the standards and lackover flexibility that exists today but the question i have for you is what would you change about the eligibility requirement of the current child nutrition assistance programs as they exit today. >> i think the important thing when you're talking about reducing errors and improper payment which is is an important endeavor is to create a culture of compliance with the rules i

don't think the rules themselves are the problem. it's helping people understand them and there's different people involved in the system. it's families filling out applications and schools running programs. it's states when they're administering them. so that kind of day in and day out work is most important in the program. >> i would second that and also add it's important to as a former president once famously stated it's important to not only trust but verify. i would add to that and say it's important to trust and verify in a meaningful manner. we found through our work that the verification process could be a strength in several important ways and it's -- that will serve the reduced improper payments rate and help drive that number down although on the

accounting side of the equation, over $700 million the improper payments estimate is due to accounting errors. that's an area that could be addressed as well through technology and better training. there's some important ways that could drive that number down to enhance the operations of the program. >> so do you believe that more state and or local input on establishing eligible requirements could be helpful in cutting down on some of the incorrect reimbursement rates? >> well, personally there's two ways to go at it. you have to first explore the potential of data analytics and computer matching to help simplify the process and make it more efficient. you can do that at the state agency level without getting

down to the school district level but at the school district level there needs to be greater awareness about how to fill out applications completely. the need to periodically do spot checks of what people are reporting. so i think you have to approach it in a multifaceted manner. centrally at the state agency level as well as the school districts they're not as well equipped to do rigorous verification. >> one of the things that does make the school meal programs easier to understand and administer is they have one set of rules that applies across the country. that's an important simplification and source of fairness and it's important to consult about what will hope to run the program more smoothly and more accurately in their areas but that's not the same as considering changing the eligibility rules.

>> do you think that eligibility for school meals ought to be eliminated? >> no, that's the source of tremendous simplification. that's what allows families who are already getting snap benefits where there's a very rigorous eligible determination, their income levels are going to be at or below the levels that are already set within the school meal program. so basically that's a tremendous simplification. >> which ones should be utilized the most? >> right now any place in the country is allowed to use data from the snap program or cash assistance. there's certain other categories like children who are homeless or in foster care that can also be automatically eligible medicaid is only available for use in 7 states right now. so that's a potential -- there's untapped potential there.

>> my time has expired mr. chairman. i thank this panel and we look forward to the testimony from the next one. thanks. >> i just wanted to do a quick follow up. you were talking about simplification but making sure we're rigorous in our oversight standards and so on, you indicated this snap program has a smaller error rate which it does. one of the smallest in the federal government in terms of overall errors and that there's a larger error rate in the food program. if we were going more in the direction of tying it to snap community eligible which has saved a lot of money in michigan and been very effective, is that what you were suggesting? looking at snap which actually has more rigorous and tying it

to that might help with simplification and tightening things up. >> there's some degree of imprecision with it but that alone suggests snap, even though there are some errors in the program when you rely on that method to enroll people in the school meals, it's -- >> it's actually less? because i think it's below 3% if i remember right right now. it's the lowest error rate of anything in agriculture programs programs. >> we did note if you were deemed eligible you're excluded

completely from verification so you may want to subject some of those eligible applications to scrutiny. >> thank you very much. we have a hearing on patent reform which was quite exciting or i would have been here earlier. thank you chairman roberts for holding this important hearing to review the child nutrition programs advance of our work to reauthorize the program. i worked hard in the last reauthorization to strengthen local wellness policies to update the nutrition standards for child care standards and after school programs and also to ensure that vending machines and ala carte choices wouldn't undercut good nutrition in the sale of junk foods. we all know how important schools are to our kids nutrition. i'm proud of the work that we have done in the bill and i think we know that we have seen

some improvement but we also know there's problems a head if we don't continue to make sure they get the most knew prishs males possible when they're at school. >> it specified that usda conductor review provided under the wic program at least every ten years some argued it should be expedited: does it keep pace with what can be done to improve the process? >> there's a review underway right now. i want to make sure that everybody is aware of that. that's working as planned and the rule is actually that the review has to happen at least every ten years but it can happen more often than that if there's reason. so if there were important changes in dietary

recommendations that might warrant a frequent review but the rule that's in place makes sense. >> very good and it's been estimated by the journal of health economics that nearly 20% of annual spending in the u.s. is obesity related how does this factor into the decision about how we reauthorize this bill. either of you can answer this. >> both programs, you know, school meals and wic have tremendous benefits in terms of the health benefits as well as preparing them for learning. so they're investments for low income children that may not have access to adequate nutrition elsewhere. to help them develop properly and stay healthy and be ready to learn at school. >> thank you. could you comment on the potential cuts to the child nutrition programs under the fiscal 2016 budget resolution

that we have just been talking about on the floor? >> broadly speaking we would be concerned about the consequences for low income families in that agreement. not specific to these programs but across the family programs families rely on when they're struggling to feed kids or make ends meet. >> one last thing back to the wic program we just talked about. it plays a critically important role in pregnant mothers as well as young children. it's contingent on some cost control and i understand that states given flexibility based on usda's minimum standards and get some of the states leave lower cost products off the list of approved foods. without dictating to states the wic food list how can we incentivize states to consider

cost controls. >> wic is a federal program with mostly federal rules. there's certain areas where there's flexibility. they get a limited amount of money. >> right. >> so the more efficiently they can use that money the more people they can serve and that's been very motivating. wic is a very cost effective program. wic costs have increased at about half the rate of inflation over time. it's a very sound investment and states have played an important part in that so the way the program is structured contributes to that incentive structure. >> thank you. did you want to add anything for any of these questions. >> no, on wic no senator. >> very good. thank you very much. i'm glad you're here. very important topic and as i said the last bill they were involved in and now leading the committee was very important and we made some great strides and we need to continue improvement

in the nutrition standards. thank you to both of you. >> thank you. i want to look back at the program. i am from north carolina. i was speaker of the house down there and looked at the various school systems, we have 115 of them in north carolina. they seem to be both for and against the food nutrition program in terms of they liked the outcome but they didn't like the overhead or didn't like how the regulations required them to implemented it. the level of details involved. has there been any work done on trying to figure out how we can -- if we're measuring out comes and that's a question i had for you. you're going through the gaos and the verification process, making sure that people entitled to it get it and those that don't, don't.

but what about the more fundamental question of the baseline when this program started and year over year improvement and outcomes which is the children's health and making sure that they're fed. are we measuring those in a scientific way and identifying best practices and intervening when they're compliant with the program but not producing positive out comes? >> that was one of our suggestions to usda. they recently started collecting a lot of good information on the so-called for cause verification process but they mix it together with other reporting so it's unclear to us what the outcomes of all of their efforts to conduct for cause verifications and those reviews are questionable applications so at least in that one area i'm very familiar with. there's broad agreement they

need to do a better job at looking at outcome measures in that area. that's verification related and perhaps she can comment on the broader nutritional outcomes. >> sure there's quite a lot of research on the pods tif benefits of these programs. in particular, for example, children that eat breakfast at school have been shown to have fewer academic issues, less absence and tardiness and better performance at school. that's a clear area where there's a strong tie between participating in the meal programs and the educational outcomes you'd like to see in school. >> one question i'd have, i don't know if it's something that we need to look more at but you hear the stories of putting i'm not going to pick a vegetable because i always make a segment of agriculture mad when i do. let's just say a vegetable that for whatever reason kids don't like yet and they're concerned that they're satisfying the letter of the regulation but a lot of that goes into the trash.

do we have any data to get that where maybe there might be something else you can put on that plate to make sure that the young person's belly is full and better using the things that we're putting on their plate? >> i hope you'll ask that question in the second panel. >> i don't know if i'm going to be here. >> there is research on the extent to which children are eating the meals. it's shown that there's less ways under the new rules than previously and there's always room for improvement but it's important to know that things seem to be moving in the right direction in terms of figuring out how to get kids to eat healthy meals. >> that's one of the concerns expressed by a lot of the people. i met with some members of the school board association and superintendent association. that seems to be a concern that they have expressed and i think it's an area that we just need to look at and the next program

i hope i'm here so i can brag a little bit on our farm to school initiatives in north carolina because we have been very aggressive in that area and i think it's very beneficial. we need to do more of it. convince those kids they're actually really good. particularly when they know where they came from. but i'm going to hold and allow us to move to the next panel and reserve my questions for that panel. thank you. >> i have been known to eat a bronchusel sprout or two but always with cheese on them. >> mine is with bacon. >> well, with bacon and cheese it might workout except i have problems with the cheese too but then that's another one. we don't want to go there at this particular time. >> thank you for this hearing. this is a good place to start

when we're talking about child nutrition and basically giving them the opportunity to grow up healthy and learn throughout the day. nutrition standards is an important first step to help create a healthier and more prepared first generation but we should also make sure that the schools have the tools they need to provide healthy meals. in north dakota 100% of our schools are meeting the standards and a couple of months ago only one school still had asked for a waver on the whole grain pasta requirement. that's pretty incredible in a state that has a fairly high rate of problems as it relates to obesity. however the study found that 74% of north dakota schools still need at least one piece of school equipment kitchen equipment in order to meet the standards and senator collins and i have introduced a bill to help schools purchase new equipment and provide them with the technical assistance on food

preparation and meeting the standards. so i just want to put a plug in for the school food modernization act which i think will give the tools that the many of our people who literally and figuratively, the equipment and the tools that they need. this is especially important in rural schools where the school districts are already strapped, where you have a large population or a small population but a huge need for upgrading. i've said it many times but my mom was a lunch lady. i'm especially partial to the school lunch program. i know what that has meant. i know what she did every day to try to put nutrishs and good food on the table. and i also knew there were kids i went to school with where that may have been the only meal that they got all day. so she took that responsibility seriously. we have been talking a lot about program integrity and making sure people who shouldn't be

participating in the program aren't. obviously, the super surfer dude hit the news last year in a big way, but it was noted 1 in 4 ap applications were denied despite actual household circumstance. we're wondering as we close the loophole and make sure we don't have fraud in the program, how can we make sure more kids get into the program who actually need the nutritious meals who need the backpack going home on the weekend? >> i think you need to raise awareness and perhaps do additional outreach at the school district level. there's good awareness, but in some pockets perhaps it isn't. that's part of the outreach campaign for the program. you want to make sure those who are deserving are in the program. >> so we've done outreach. i'm looking for a new solution. >> well, that's probably in my

humble opinion, that's something the next panel could better address. they're obviously working at the local level and they probably have really good perspective on that. i sort of have the global view. >> i think you take my point seriously, which is we have fraud, but we also have a lot of kids who go home hungry, and that's got to be part of this discussion. can you suggest any ideas? on how we can expand awareness or how we can expand participation for children who go hungry? >> sure, awareness is certainly an important part of it, making the programs accessible and making sure they stay that way. we have focused quite a lot on the ways you kim prove accuracy and make sure the programs are working as they should. it's important every step of the way to make sure you're not putting barriers in the way for families who qualify for the programs and need the benefits. that balance is an important way of making sure the programs remain available to students. some of the programs we talked

about earlier the community eligibility program, where high poverty schools can serve meals at no charge to all students, a way to make it easier for low-income families to get the benefits. >> thank you. yield the rest of my time. >> thank you senator. senator brown and senator bennett have questions for the next panel so i think unless i'm mistaken this concludes the contributions from the first panel. thank you so much for coming. thank you for your testimony. we could now have the second panel please come forward.

i think in the interest of time, we are going to introduce all of the witnesses, each one, of course, deserve ss their timely moment of fleeting pain before the committee. but we would like to welcome mr. brian riendeau he joins us today from louisville, kentucky where he is the executive director at dare to care food bank. earlier in his career he also led a government and community affairs for the kfc corporation.

i think everybody understands who that is. and served as a legislative assistance for senate majority leader, that would be mitch mcconnell, wouldn't it? >> i can't remember. >> can't remember? all right. thank you for being here today. we look forward to your testimony. mr. richard goff of the office of child nutrition from west virginia and their department of education is next. mr. goff joins us on behalf of the west virginia department of education where he's served as executive director at the office of child -- since 2005. he has 26 years of experience with the west virginia department of education, including work with the child and adult care food program. and in his current role he oversees development and policies administration related to all child nutrition programs. welcome, i look forward to your

testimony, sir, and your insight. ms. cindy jones. i'm especially happy to introduce to the committee ms. jones who serves as the business management coordinator for food service in kansas. she has worked for the olathe public school ss food programs for 20 years. starting at 17 as i recall. she serves as the public policy and legislation committee chair in the school nutrition association of kansas and has served as vice president and president. dr. sandra hassink. i hope i have that right. hassink. who is president of the american academy of pediatrics. currently serves as president, hailed from wilmington delaware. the doctor has focused her career on preventing and treating obesity in children. she is a pediatrician at a

hospital for children where she founded the weight management program in 1988 serves as the director of a pediatric obesity initiative. the doctor began her medical career at the vanderbilt school of medicine as one of only 12 women in her graduating class. thank you for being here today. i look forward to all of your testimony. we will start with you sir. >> thank you, chairman roberts, ranking member stab ano and the members of the committee. thank you for inviting mere here today. i'm honored to representing feeding america's food banks that serve 12 million children. dare to care food bank works with 13 counties in kentucky and indiana. our service area spans nearly 4,000 square miles and includes urban, suburban, and rural areas. i'm here to tell you that child

hunger is real, real in the communities we serve and real across this country and it's a particularly stark reality when children are not in school. but i'm also here to tell you today that we can solve child hunger, through innovative public-private partnerships and strong federal nutrition programs we can insure all children have access to enough food for an active and healthy life. i'm here to ask you to help us make good programs even better. food banks like mine cannot do our work without the federal food service program and the child and adult food care program. and if certain changes were made to these programs we could reach even more kids in need. my food bank provides more than 1,000 hot meals a day to kids throughout the year. children who visit our partner sites will not only receive a nutritious meal but they'll have a safe alternative to being on the streets. they get tutoring mentoring, and sports. far too many children can't reach summer and after school meal programs particularly in the summer. in fact summer food service program in my state reaches less than 10% of the low income kids

and only 18% nationally. why is that? at dare to care our programs are concentrated in jefferson county, an urban county where summer programming and services are available and where many of our children can get to sites. the current summer feeding model which requires children to consume meals at a designated sites works great where they have gathered for tutoring and mentoring. however, we face challenges in rural communities. lack of sites and transportation. those communities simply lack facilities where kids can congregate and consume a meal when makes the on-site feeding requirement difficult or impossible to comply with. even schools that try to provide summer feeding report low participation rates because kids are not able to travel to the site every day. there are several policy changes you could make to help us reach more kids in the summer and after school, and we believe it will require a two-part strategy. first, strengthen the model by

streamlining programs and making it easier for community providers to expand the number of sites available to children. currently, we have to operate two federal programs. one inn the school year and another in the summer even if we're serving the same kids the same meals att at the same sites year round. moving to one will allow us to feed kid and not push paperwork. additionally, lowering the area age threshold from 40% to 50% will expand the sites available and allow them with other federally funded youth programs. second no two communities are the same. we need to maintain strong standards and accountability while providing new program models that local communities can tailor to best meet their circumstances to really make progress in closing the summer gap. dare to care currently runs privately funded programs to fill the gap. our backpack program in rural communities provides children