The Virginia General Assembly met Monday for a Special Session with the primary goal of passing a budget. After two months of a stalemate, they were able to reach a compromise. The budget they passed is very similar to the budget originally passed by the legislature in March. It contains all of their previous funding priorities, including the increased reimbursement for school breakfast that SNA advocated for during session. The current reimbursement for the breakfast incentive program is $0.22 per breakfast served above the previously established baseline and we were able to secure an increase to $0.28 per breakfast in the budget passed by the legislature in March. Unfortunately, Governor Youngkin amended that to only increase it to $0.25 per breakfast. We are thrilled that the legislature rectified this and put it back to the new reimbursement of $0.28 per breakfast.
There had been concerns that there would not be enough revenue for these initiatives once they removed the digital sales tax proposal from the budget. However, they were able to still do so because of increased revenues and money that was now available as a result of Governor Youngkin’s 150+ vetoes. We are thrilled our funding is safe and we can move forward on increasing access to school meals.