Sponsors (18)
The bill modernizes and standardizes child nutrition and child care program rules to expand meal access and reduce federal paperwork while improving predictability and provider due process, but it shifts administrative burdens, creates transition costs, and risks weakening or mismatching some state-level health, safety, and funding protections.
Children in long-day child care and afterschool programs (and the families who rely on them) are more likely to get an additional reimbursable meal when eligible, improving daily food access and reducing household food burden.
Parents, program operators, and schools will face less paperwork and faster enrollment/verification through allowed digital forms, e-signatures, nationwide direct certification, and modernized monitoring, saving time and reducing administrative duplication.
School and child-care providers get clearer, standardized federal definitions of 'serious deficiency' plus standardized appeals and corrective-action guidance, reducing uncertainty, protecting due process, and lowering risk of arbitrary disqualification (including by limiting consideration of state-only rules).
Children and families could face weaker local health or safety protections if federal review rules prevent consideration of stricter state requirements, creating a risk that important state-level safeguards are undermined.
Some children may lose an extra reimbursable meal (or see delays) if the rule limiting standard reimbursements to 2 meals + 1 supplement (or 1 + 2) is tightly applied or if USDA guidance narrows eligibility, reducing food access for low-income kids.
States, providers, and USDA may incur new or higher administrative costs — from annual eligibility reviews, training on new federal guidance, tracking hours/meal periods, and adopting approved electronic systems — straining budgets especially for small providers and state agencies.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Updates CACFP rules: annual eligibility for proprietary centers, reviews enforcement, limits reimbursable meals with a study on a third meal, swaps CPI series, and creates a paperwork‑reduction advisory committee.
Makes targeted changes to the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to reduce paperwork, standardize eligibility, refine deficiency/enforcement processes, set limits on reimbursable meals while studying the effects of a potential additional meal, and update the inflation index used in program adjustments. It also creates an advisory committee to recommend ways to eliminate redundant forms and allow modern electronic recordkeeping, and requires USDA reviews, studies, guidance, and reports to Congress on implementation timelines.
Introduced April 10, 2025 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress April 10, 2025