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In response to the 2025 Federal Budget Reconciliation bill being signed into law, Jennifer Tani, President and CEO of Healthy Schools Campaign, drafted a letter to the industry that outlined the law's impact on the industry. Shared with permission, this is that letter:

On the Fourth of July, President Trump signed the 2025 Federal Budget Reconciliation bill into law, codifying the largest ever cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, and putting funding for our nation’s public schools at risk. This law will create major financial hardships for our most vulnerable families and put huge financial burdens on states and school districts. Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) is more determined than ever to work with our partners to support children, schools and families, and help schools and districts provide healthy environments that support the health and wellness needs of students and prepare them to learn and thrive.

As a result of this law, many families will face devastating consequences. This is especially true for families and communities that depend on a strong social safety net for health, well-being and educational and economic opportunity. BIPOC communities and rural communities will be hardest hit, but these cuts will have a major negative impact on all families with low or moderate incomes.

Under the new law, immigrant and refugee communities will be barred from accessing vital federal programs and assistance essential to their wellness, safety and security. These harmful directives, paired with a massive new investment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) capacity for mass detention and deportation, will increasingly deter immigrant communities from accessing educational, health and social services.

While we do not yet know the full reality of how these harmful provisions will ripple across our schools, communities and society, we do know that: 

- Deep cuts to Medicaid will harm student health and school budgets. The new law limits how states can finance their Medicaid programs, and enacts a provision to impose work requirements on Medicaid enrollment. Many anticipate these changes, which ultimately amount to cuts of $1 trillion to Medicaid, will cause an estimated 12 to 16 million people, including children, to lose healthcare. When millions of children lose their health insurance, their schools also lose vital, sustainable funding from Medicaid, the fourth-largest federal funding source overall for K-12 schools. These cuts will force many school districts to eliminate vital services, lay off staff and raise taxes. Many children will also lose access to critical preventive healthcare, screenings and treatment.    

- Sweeping changes to SNAP mean fewer students will have access to school meals and adequate nutrition. By enacting stricter eligibility requirements for food assistance and healthcare, the law will reduce the number of families who qualify for SNAP, a vital food assistance program for many families. In addition, fewer children will be automatically eligible for free school meals, and fewer school districts will be eligible for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows districts that meet a certain threshold to provide free school meals to all students. Ultimately, these changes may force states to severely cut their school nutrition programs due to increased budgetary pressures to offset lost federal funds.    

- School vouchers will drain scarce resources from public schools. The new tax law includes a national school voucher program that incentivizes tax-deductible donations to pay for vouchers for private and religious schools, which are not mandated to provide supports to students with disabilities, and are not bound to many federal education regulations. Public school funding is dependent on enrollment, so when families opt out of public schools, the funding for public schools is greatly diminished. This will destabilize public schools and could remove public school as a viable option for families, including those with students with disabilities.

This new law will unravel decades of progress made for children and families, jeopardizing the future health and prosperity of generations to come. 

As an organization, we are deeply disappointed in this outcome, but will do everything in our power to support families, children and public schools during these challenging times, and continue to strongly advocate at the federal, state and local levels. HSC will actively support states, local communities and school districts as they center the needs of students, and we will stay laser-focused on our mission of making schools healthier places for students.