Dear editor:
We still have hungry kids.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft’s May 3, 2026, guest column: “Why Did I Vote To Let Hungry Kids Starve?” in his own words, proves more than he intended.
The short answer to his question is: because he decided it was too expensive to feed them.
Instead of understanding the numbers or offering an alternative to the SUN Bucks Program, he simply chose not to fund it; however, never does he deny that Wyoming has hungry kids.
SUN Bucks is a federal program that would have injected $3.84M into the Wyoming economy, with the sole goal of assisting eligible families with $120.00 per eligible child, per year.
No one can feed their child on $120.00 for the whole year. This was an offer of assistance, and not a meal ticket.
When presented with the details of the SUN Bucks Program, Rep. Pendergraft decided it was too expensive, but offered no alternative.
When the federal government allocates $3.84M taxpayer dollars to a state they have requirements. In this case the requirements were as follows:
1. The state must build the SUN Bucks Program as mandated by the feds. The program startup mandates included a system to verify eligibility of every child, process the EBT Card that would have the limit of $120.00 / year on it, monitor the system that makes sure the funds are being used for eligible foods, and constantly guard against fraud (think Minnesota and the millions of dollars stolen due to failure to guard against fraud). These mandates are not cheap. They require purchasing IT systems, hiring and training people to run the systems, having a troubleshooter, and a help line.
2. The cost to the state would be $1,767,024 per year, to build the mandated system and prove its efficacy over two years. This totals $3,534,048. Half of $3,534,048 or $1,757,024 would be reimbursed to the state by the federal government.
3. Once up and running, the state was mandated by the feds to shoulder one-half of the ongoing expenses of the program. The yearly expense to run the program was projected to be $967,024/year, with one-half or $483,512 being the responsibility of the state. Our budget is a two-year budget, so when an agency asks for state funding they ask for two years of funding.
Let’s recap: Mr. Pendergraft doesn’t deny there are hungry kids, he just was not willing to take the time to figure out the numbers or offer his own solution to feed them. At the end of the day, Mr. Pendergraft saved us nothing.
We still have hungry kids.
Sincerely,
Deb Wendtland, Sheridan
