Sen. Keith King poses during the first regular session of the 68th Colorado General Assembly. (Joe Amon, Denver Post file)
A Republican state senator who’s also a school principal restored funding today for a program that subsidizes school breakfasts for poor children.
Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs, moved an amendment in the Senate Appropriations Committee this morning that approved $124,229 in supplemental funding for the Start Smart Nutrition Program, which makes breakfast free for children who would otherwise have to pay a reduced price of 30 cents.
“I just don’t think this is an appropriate place to be cutting K-12 education,” King said. “We had the money. We have some kids that needed that program.”
The funding was needed to help cover the costs of the program through the end of the current 2010-11 fiscal year, which ends in June.
Earlier this year, the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee rejected approving additional money for the program on a 3-3 partisan split. Republicans on the committee became the targets of intense criticism, especially Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, who remarked at the time that he believed in a “strong responsibility to feed (his) own family.”
Democrats vowed to restore the funding, either on the Senate floor or through a House bill that is still pending. The administration of Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, also signaled it would seek to approve the additional funding.
But it was King, principal of a charter high school in Colorado Springs, who moved to put the funding in the supplemental today. King said his school has roughly a 40 percent population of students who qualify for a free or reduced price lunch.
“The economy has been tough, and people have lost their jobs,” King said. “I want kids to have a breakfast when they come to school.”
Notably, King’s amendment passed unanimously, with Lambert, also a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, voting in favor.
The bill containing the supplemental appropriation still must come before the full Senate, and that’s expected to happen on Monday.