U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow states to provide federally-funded pandemic electronic benefit transfer payments to families of schoolchildren who did not apply in time for the 2019-2020 school years or who went uncovered by Colorado’s program.

“States established P-EBT programs quickly and heroically last spring and summer, but not without challenges and significant gaps in access. The flexibility to amend state plans for 2019-2020 will allow states to apply the lessons of the first round of this program to last school year in order to address gaps in access and ensure nutrition benefits reach all the eligible students they were intended to support,” wrote Neguse in a Dec. 22 letter.

He was one of three dozen Democratic House members to sign on, including Colorado’s Jason Crow of Aurora and Ed Perlmutter or Arvada.

The Families First Coronavirus Act in March created the P-EBT program as a substitute for free and reduced-price school lunches that children could not access due to building closures. Colorado was among the states that required certain families to apply for benefits, while auto-enrolling others.

In November, the USDA indicated it would not allow states to modify their plans for the 2019-2020 school year, but would permit the issuance of benefits to children who were covered yet did not receive benefits.

“The current guidance is also inequitable; it hurts children in states that had more challenging enrollment processes, less established centralized student data infrastructure, or that required applications for large populations to access the benefit,” the letter continued.