As the new school year begins across Minnesota, nearly all students will be getting free breakfast and lunch at school thanks to a recent change in state law.

Governor Tim Walz signed the free school meals into law last year and it proved to be very popular. And as more families have their children eat free at school it’s driving up costs to taxpayers.

You could say the kitchen staff at Brimhall Elementary school in Roseville has never been busier. Workers are gearing up to serve big numbers of students again this year.

“It was a huge success last year,” Maria Amerman said, who is Roseville Schools Nutrition Supervisor.

Amerman said Roseville had to hire more staff, buy new kitchen equipment and make larger food orders all to accommodate the surge in demand for school meals. District wide on average schools in the Roseville district have been serving 50% more breakfasts and 30% more lunches.

“We have lunch ladies and food dudes and nutrition staff excited to see kiddos,” Amerman said. “And they want your kiddo to come through the lunch line and when they don’t come through, they miss them.”

Amerman says school leaders in her district credit the free meals with helping to reduce the number of behavioral problems and student trips to the nurse. 

But the popularity of the program comes at a cost to Minnesota taxpayers — millions more this year statewide than initially thought with the total annual cost nearing $250 million.

“I know in the first year it cost more than the state was anticipating.” Amerman said. “But I think it would be very difficult to reverse this.”

Critics of the free meals say students from families that needed financial help were already getting free or reduced cost meals through other programs. They argued this only extends free meals to families that can already afford them.

Amerman says she sees it differently.

“We should be able to feed these kiddos just like we provide textbooks to all kids we don’t charge for textbooks for some kids and provide them free for others,” she said.

With this change, Minnesota becomes one of eight states across the country offering free school meals. State leaders estimate schools are serving about 16 million meals a month to kindergarten through 12th grade students, statewide.