We fact-checked Oklahoma schools chief Ryan Walters’ claims about school lunch

After Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters said he will require every district in the state to offer all students free lunch using existing funding, school officials pushed back. Walters claims schools are flush with cash and the new requirement “will force districts to cut the fat.” But the districts have called Walters’ decree an unfunded mandate and say they don’t have the money to feed every student. We fact-checked claims on school funding using interviews and public records and found several false and half-true statements about school finances.

Claim: Oklahoma school administrators got a 14% salary raise last year.
Source: “Last year, Oklahoma families were slapped with a staggering $42 million bill for school meals — on top of their taxes — while administrators pocketed a 14% salary hike,” the Oklahoma State Department of Education claimed in a July 7 press release announcing the changes to school meals.
Fact check: False

A spokesperson for the State Department of Education pointed The Frontier to a report from the Institute of Education Sciences published in April.

Oklahoma spent $1.1 billion on salaries and wages for non-instruction-related support services during the 2023 fiscal year, about a 5% increase over the previous year, according to the Institute of Education Sciences. Non-instruction-related spending included student support services, general administration, school administration, transportation and more, the report said.

When asked for additional information on data that could show a 14% salary increase, the State Department of Education sent back a statement from Walters advising schools to “live within their means.”

The state’s two largest school districts — Tulsa Public Schools and Oklahoma City Public Schools — both said no administrative employees received a blanket 14% salary increase last year.

Spending on administrative functions has increased overall, according to a 2022 report from the Oklahoma Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency. Administrative expenditures statewide increased by 40% while instructional expenditures increased by 35%, though it varied widely by schools, the report found.
-Kayla Branch

Claim: Oklahoma schools spend more than 50% of every dollar on administrative costs.
Source: “The federal government says that we as a state spend more than 50% of every dollar in education toward administrative costs,” Walters said in an interview on July 9 with KJRH, citing numbers he said came from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Fact check: False

An Oklahoma State Department of Education spokesman said the source of Walters’ claim was the annual Revenue and Expenditures for Public Education and Secondary Education report for the 2022-2023 school year published by the National Center for Education Statistics. Oklahoma spent $7.7 billion on schools that year, according to the report. The state spent $955 million of that on administrative costs for school and district-level administration, as well as some support services, according to the report. Administrative costs accounted for only around 12.3% of total school expenditures, significantly less than the 50% or more Walters cited.
-Clifton Adcock

Claim: Some schools will still have funding gaps for meal service, even if they qualify for federal universal meal programs.
Source: “The reality is that eligibility for programs like (Community Eligibility Provisions) is not the same feasibility, and, for many schools, the gap between the cost of food service and the reimbursement for universal school meals is not workable without additional investment from the state,” the group Hunger Free Oklahoma wrote in a July 7 press release.
Fact check: True

The Community Eligibility Provision is a federal program that allows schools in high poverty areas to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students. But many school districts must cover some costs to offer free meals unless at least 62.5% of their students participate in a qualifying program like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
–Ari Fife

Claim: Parents are triple-taxed when they have to pay for school lunches for their children.
Source: “Oklahoma taxpayers are being triple-taxed to cover lunches while bureaucrats fatten their wallets,” Walters said in a July 7 press release. He also told parents in an email that they already pay taxes locally and on the federal level that go to cover the cost of school lunches.
Fact check: Mixed

Oklahomans pay state and federal taxes that fund public schools and programs. Walters’ claim that school lunches are a “third tax” is a “great soundbite without much substance,” said Chris Bernard, CEO of  Hunger Free Oklahoma, a statewide organization focused on ending hunger in Oklahoma.

Data for this year from the Oklahoma State Department of Education shows that 256 school districts participate in the Community Eligibility Provision program. Another 246 districts are eligible for the program but aren’t participating.

A 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that districts nationwide seemed to factor their level of federal reimbursement most heavily when deciding whether to participate in the free meals program.

“Frankly there’s no funding stream to pay for meals for every kid,” Bernard said “When we look at the cost to do that, without building a real intentional structure that incentivizes schools to adopt certain things or making it financially feasible, you’re just robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
-Dylan Goforth

Claim: Some school districts have millions of dollars in extra funding that can be used to pay for school meals.
Source: In a July 10 email to parents, Walters said that districts like Bixby, Deer Creek, Piedmont and Broken Arrow have millions in surplus funds that can pay for school meals.
Fact check: Mostly False

Some school districts do have money remaining in various funds at the end of the fiscal year, but the money isn’t always available to pay for student meals. Some funds have other legally designated purposes.

Broken Arrow Chief Communications Officer Tara Thompson wrote in an email to The Frontier that some funds may be carried over to new fiscal years for operational expenses such as salaries and equipment replacement as revenue from tax collection is not available until January.

“You are basically subsidizing the front end of the year with the carryover funds, with the fund balance,” Mike Anthony, Chief Financial Officer at Bixby Public Schools, told The Frontier.

Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the State Department of Education, said the figures Walters cited were based on what each school district reported to the state.
-Kevin Eagleson

Claim: Schools have less administrative paperwork to do since Trump came into office.
Source: “The Trump administration is slashing regulations at the federal level. The Federal department of education is going away. They have less paperwork to fill out, they have less administrative work to do,” Walters said in a July interview.
Fact check: Mixed

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to “return education authority” to the states and take steps to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

In a White House Fact Sheet, the administration wrote that President Joe Biden’s rules for the Department of Education “imposed nearly $3.9 billion in costs and 4,239,530 paperwork hours” on schools, but it’s unclear where those figures came from.

Trump has successfully downsized staffing at the Department of Education, terminating over 1,300 employees after the Supreme Court allowed the firings to proceed.
-Peggy Dodd

Claim: School funding is at a record high.
Walters said: “Schools have more money in the budget than ever before,” Walters wrote in an email to parents.
Fact check: True

State education funding is the highest it’s been in at least six years, with $3.98 billion appropriated for the 2026 fiscal year, according to Oklahoma House of Representatives budget reports. However, Oklahoma still has teacher salaries below the national average and some of the lowest per-student spending in the nation, according to a recent report from the National Education Association.
-Maddy Keyes

Rating system: 
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details
False: A claim that has no basis in fact

The Frontier (ReadFrontier.org) is a nonprofit newsroom that produces fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma.