As students across the country celebrate National School Lunch Week, students in Washoe County missing out on guaranteed school meals due to Joe Lombardo’s veto of AB319. Last month, Washoe County School District drained its savings meant for support staff salaries and cafeteria improvements – to fill the void for hardworking families created by Lombardo’s veto. Despite being fact-checked, Assembly Deputy Minority Whip Danielle Gallant called school lunches for hungry kids “wasteful government spending” and on the Senate side, Carrie Buck said that the budget won’t be on “wasted food.” The Nevada Assembly Republican Caucus doubled down claiming that ensuring no student in Nevada goes hungry would be a waste of money. 

Lombardo’s veto is in lockstep with the extremist provisions in his endorsed candidate for president Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, which also wants to drastically curtail access to nutritious meals for students. Trump’s MAGA-Project 2025 agenda would completely eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision in the federal school food program that benefits hundreds of Nevada public schools.

“It’s a shame that during National School Lunch Week we have to remind the NVGOPof the importance of feeding our children. Joe Lombardo’s decision to veto guaranteed school meals and Republicans’ decision to double down on it puts additional burdens on working families and snatches resources away from students that would benefit them physically, mentally, and academically,” said Nevada State Democratic Party Spokesperson Carlos Perez. “Our students deserve leaders who will fight for their future, not turn their backs on them in times of need.”

Watch Washoe County School Board President and mom, Beth Smith, explain how Lombardo’s veto is harmful to Washoe County families: 

WATCH HERE:

ANCHOR: In the 2023 Nevada legislative session, Governor Joe Lombardo, you might recall, vetoed a $43 million extension of the pandemic era, universal free school meals program. Now the veto of the program, which provided funding from the US Department of Agriculture, has forced the Washoe County School District to dip into its general budget to backfill it. 

BETH SMITH: It’s about feeding kids. As simple as that, our kids need to be fed in order to do their best, in order to succeed in school.