After cutting more than $660 million last year from programs to get locally grown food into school lunchrooms, the Trump administration is announcing a series of smaller grants to improve healthy options in schools.
But some district leaders say it’s nowhere near enough.
On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stopped at Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary School for a roundtable on improving school menu options.
After, Kennedy unveiled a grant to "replace highly processed foods with nutrient-dense, real food." The amount for the Developing Evidence for Programs to Ensure Nutrition for Development (DEPEND) grant is $32 million.
It’s one of a series of new, smaller grants, announced by the Trump administration. Some are for cafeteria improvements. Others, farm to school programs. The grants range from about $25 million to $50 million each.
ALSO READ: It’s not just the cost of tater tots. Here's why school lunch prices are going up again
WUSF asked Kennedy how this could make up for the $660 million cut when the government ended a program called Local Food for Schools (LFS) last year.
"The programs that were canceled were programs that were not functioning. Our kids are not getting healthy meals in their schools," Kennedy said.
Florida would have received an estimated $42.6 million in LFS funds from the federal government in 2025, the year the grant was canceled, according to USDA data.
Kennedy claimed that, from changing the food pyramid to making it harder to buy sodas on SNAP benefits, “this administration has made the biggest investment in children's food of any administration in history."
But school leaders tell a different story.
A survey of 1,240 school meal program directors this year found higher cost was the top challenge, and to reduce reliance on processed foods 99% needed more funding, with 79% saying that need was “extreme,” according to the nonprofit School Nutrition Association.
ALSO READ: Pasco schools ditch pricey lunch transaction fees, design own app
Nearly all respondents said they needed more staff, training and equipment, and that major challenges are the costs of food (98%), labor (95%) and equipment (95%).
"I mean everybody wants to eat fresh food, but that takes a lot of money, time and effort. I think the one thing that we didn't really discuss is the economics behind that concept," said Hillsborough School Board member Nadia Combs, who was at the roundtable and said afterward that the conversation needed a dose of reality.
For instance the $32 million grant Kennedy talked about Wednesday will be spread out nationwide.
"Our payroll is $65 million every 2 weeks. So when you see $32 million for the nation, you know it's not going to trickle down to a lot of money to us," said Combs.
"Everything has gone up so exponentially, including food. But the only thing that hasn't gone up is the amount of money that we're putting into our schools and into our students," she said.
Sen. Ashley Moody was there, along with some Hillsborough County district leaders and Shani Hall, the district’s award-winning general manager for food nutrition.
Hall “was recognized as the best lunch person for the entire state of Florida with her innovative ideas” in 2025, said Combs. “She shared some of them, but I think she wanted to share so much more.”
