Well-intentioned legislation designed to help keep kids’ hunger pangs at bay is costing some public school districts money they say they can’t afford to spend.

“It’s become economically challenging for us – we’ve had to transfer money from our general fund to at least break even,” said Glenn Gustafson, deputy superintendent and chief financial officer for Colorado Springs School District 11.

State lawmakers passed the Breakfast After the Bell Nutrition Program in May 2013. It requires public schools with 70 percent or more of enrollment qualifying for the federal free and reduced lunch program to provide free breakfast on school days to every student.

No one disputes it’s a great idea, Gustafson says.

Research shows that students who eat a nutritious breakfast perform better in school, according to Hunger Free Colorado, an organization that works to end hunger in the state and that advocated for the program.

But it’s created a financial burden on enough schools in the state that lawmakers for two years in a row have attempted to change the bill to allow school districts to charge students who don’t qualify for free or reduced lunch to pay for the breakfasts that are delivered to their classrooms each morning.

This session’s House Bill 1463 had broad bipartisan support but was killed in the Senate on a non-recorded voice vote after several Democrats spoke against the measure.

“This is the ‘now make your teacher a waitress’ bill,” said Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, a teacher and term-limited senator. “The idea behind this bill when it passed the first time was it was elegant in that it was simple … If you are one of the three kids in that class who is not on free and reduced lunch, we are going to ask you to pay for that breakfast. Which is fine, except now we have to take record of who the paying kids are, and who the free students are.”

The state has moved from 44th to 11th in the nation for school breakfast participation in recent years, largely due to the program.

The problem, Gustafson and some other district officials in the state say, is that 70 percent is too low of a threshold to require schools to participate.

Schools are reimbursed from the federal government for the breakfasts for the students whose household income qualifies them for the National School Lunch Program. But schools don’t receive any money for serving complimentary breakfast to kids who aren’t needy enough for the lunch program.

For schools with high enrollment of low-income students, the numbers work out, Gustafson said. For schools near the bottom of the 70 percent cutoff, it costs money.

D-11 has transferred $77,000 each year since the new law took effect, he said, and will continue to do so unless it changes. Twelve of the 58 D-11 schools that serve food must offer the free-breakfast-for-all program.

In 2014-2015, the first year of implementation, the mandate applied to schools with 80 percent of students considered low-income. Starting with the 2015-2016 academic year, the threshold was lowered to 70 percent.

In the 2015 legislative session, D-11 joined other districts in pushing for the level to remain at 80 percent.

“We explained how challenging it was for us, but they didn’t get it,” Gustafson said. “We were unsuccessful, and we kind of gave up.”

D-11 was not involved in this year’s effort to again tweak the mandate.

“The bill came out late in the session this year, and made it through committee, so we thought we were good to go,” Gustafson said. “But it died on the floor, and we’re still in the same position. Schools are struggling for funding, and it’s getting harder and harder, and this is just one more thing we have to do that they did not provide funding for.”

Two Colorado Springs Republicans sponsored the bill, Rep. Janak Joshi and Sen. Owen Hill, along with Democrats Rep. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, and Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood.

The bill passed the House 51-13 with one person excused. It died in the Senate after a short debate on an unrecorded second reading vote, after House Majority Leader Mark Scheffel could be heard on the microphone telling Sen. Ellen Roberts, “dies on a voice vote.” All bills require two votes on the floor of each chamber. The first is always an unrecorded voice vote and the second vote is a roll call vote where every lawmaker records where they stand on a bill.

“I don’t know if it was politics,” Joshi said. “Moreno was on the bill with me, I don’t know if that’s why it died in the Senate. Some of those things we saw this session. I would not be surprised.”

Regardless, Joshi said, schools need the extra money to fund the program, so he will work on the issue this summer, and if he’s re-elected, try to bring forward a bill next year.

State lawmakers passed the Breakfast After the Bell Nutrition Program in May 2013.