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After the price of food shot up last spring, the impact was felt in school cafeterias across the country. Now, more families are asking for help to pay for school lunches, and in some Connecticut school districts, it's making a difficult budget situation worse.

Wendy LeDuc has been the lead cook at Chippens Hill Middle School in Bristol, Connecticut for fifteen years.

She watches as students snake through the cafeteria's double lines, filling up their trays with today's choice: a rib-e-cue sandwich or a calzone with pizza sauce.

This school year, she says the cafeteria's been particularly busy.     

"Kids are taking advantage of the breakfast plan, and they seem to be eating their lunch."

It's at the end of the line, when students get to the cashier, where LeDuc sees what might be behind the new demand: 

"A lot more children seem to be taking advantage of the free and reduced program." 

The school district's numbers confirm her hunch. More families are requesting and qualifying for help. Lunch director Greg Boulanger says it’s a direct result of the local economy.

“Everybody is just a little off in what their business is. You know, I talk to the families and the kids, and they’re down. “

The hard times are also hitting the school lunch budget.

A third of all lunches served in Bristol are free. The school district loses 21 cents on every one of those. 

Steven DeVaux runs Bristol’s business office.

"The more students that we qualify for free and reduced, which is rising dramatically, the more we're going to sustain a deficit."

To qualify for a reduced price lunch in Connecticut, the federal income limit is about 39,000 dollars a year for a family of four. If they make 12-thousand dollars less than that, it's free.

Nationally, the federal assistance program currently pitches in on 60 percent of school meals served.

In Bristol, the poverty rate has been creeping up over the last several years. More students qualified for lunch subsidies last year than the year before. It's already up 2 and a half percent this fall, and Boulanger is bracing for more applications come winter.

"What do you thinks going to happen when those families start to pay that first oil bill when they've got the furnace turned on? Then we're really going to see another push."

And with high food costs and rigorous nutrition standards, Boulanger says it’s not easy to find places to save money. 

"We're feeding kids. This is not a situation where it's a destination restaurant maybe on a Saturday night. It's your children's breakfast and lunch, and I just feel that our state legislators and federal government could help us more. "

At the federal level, the reimbursement increases once a year based on food prices. It’s paying 10 cents more per meal this school year. 

That’s not the case at the state level. Bristol plan to ask legislators during the next session to increase the state’s share of the cost.

“We are aware that school districts are strapped. Unfortunately, we just do not have it in our budget at this time.”

Tom Murphy is spokesman for the state Department of Education, which is looking for places to cut costs, not expand them. 

“We’re going to be looking to the local districts to find cost savings wherever they can to reduce their costs for providing meals, and to help them to increase the number of students who partake in the school lunch programs, not only the free and reduced program, but those paying students who can offset the costs.” 

Reducing the price of meals while keeping them both healthy and appealing for student customers is a tall order, says Mary Ann Lopez. She's the president of the state chapter of the School Nutrition Association, a trade group of school nutrition directors.

"it's harder than it's ever been, between the regulations and the expectations and the costs. Balancing your budget today, it’s is a miracle. We just keep our fingers crossed as we go along." 

Lopez runs the lunch program in South Windsor’s schools. She hasn't seen the same jump in students qualifying for assistance, but in suburban districts like hers, she has noticed something else. 

"What we are seeing is an increase in denies which comes from parents who have had substantial incomes who have lost the income of one of the two. So they’re struggling because they’ve never lived with so little money, but they’re not anywhere near the levels that the national government sets as guidelines.  

At those current limits, the Bush administration’s budget projects more than a quarter million more students will qualify for help this school year.

In Connecticut, immediate help does not look to be on the horizon. The governor’s call for the special session later this month includes more aid to towns, but it does not propose changes to the state lunch reimbursement.