A free, nutritious breakfast would be provided for public school students under the provisions of a bill scheduled for a public hearing this afternoon in Augusta. The measure would require the state to pay at least part of the cost of a healthful school breakfast for any student who qualifies for a free or reduced-price lunch.

The proposal comes with a price tag of more than $1.4 million to be paid out of the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which receives about $50 million each year from the cigarette industry to be spent on public health interventions.

The bill’s primary sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, could not be reached Monday to comment on her proposal.

But Dr. Dora Anne Mills, head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that many studies bear out the truth to the adage that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

Mills, a pediatrician by training, said there also is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that many children and teens in Maine are undernourished and routinely come to school with little or no breakfast under their belts.

“We hear it from teachers all the time,” she said.

Children who eat a nourishing breakfast – as opposed to “one of the plethora of children’s cereals that are nothing but sugar” – tend to not only be healthier but also better able to learn in the school environment, Mills added.

Thousands of Maine students qualify for the federally subsidized school lunch program, run out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which reimburses public schools for meals provided to children from lower-income families.

Most public schools participate in the program, but many say the federal subsidy is not enough to cover their expenses.

Mitchell’s bill, LD 1997, would require all public schools to provide free or reduced-price breakfast to all students who qualify for the discounted lunch program, and it would require the state to pay schools for associated costs that are not reimbursed by the USDA.

A spokesman from Gov. John Baldacci’s office said Monday that the governor “looks on [Mitchell’s bill] favorably” but has not decided whether he would sign it into law given the state’s current financial challenges.

At Bangor’s elementary schools, the base price for a USDA-approved lunch is $1.75, according to the school department Web site, www.bangorschools.net. Middle school and high school students pay $2. At all schools, the reduced price is just 40 cents, and for some students there is no charge at all. The USDA reimburses schools for the difference.

Many schools that provide lunch also offer a breakfast program, but not all. Breakfast in Bangor elementary and middle schools costs 75 cents; the cost is discounted to 30 cents or free for students who qualify. Bangor High School does not offer breakfast.

The text of LD 1997 may be read online by going to http://janus.state.me.us/legis/ and typing the number into the search window in the upper right-hand corner.

More information on the federal school lunch program is available at www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/.

mhaskell@bangordailynews.net

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