Retroactive payments made for past year

The federal government has authorized the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF) and Agency of Education (AOE) to provide temporary food benefits to students (Pre-K to grade 12) who would normally receive free or reduced-price meals at school.

These benefits, called Pandemic EBT or P-EBT, are based on the student’s learning model for the month — from March to June 2021:

• A full benefit of $119.35 for a remote learning month.
• A partial benefit for a hybrid learning month: $38.19 in March, $37.51 in April, $33.42 in May, and $30.69 in June.

Eligible children will also receive a one-time benefit of $375 for the summer. To be eligible, children must have been:

1. enrolled in a school offering the school meals program as of June 2021, and
2. eligible to receive free/reduced-price meals at school.

Children who were enrolled in school as of June 2021 but who had not yet applied for free/reduced-price meals may still get the summer benefit by submitting a school meals application by August 16, 2021. This includes students who graduated in June.  Contact the student’s school to find out how to apply.

Approximately $20.4 million in benefits will be issued to 26,343 Vermont households for March through August 2021. This covers 39,551 students.

About 6,000 Vermont families with children under six and not eligible for the program listed above also have received retroactive pandemic payments for October 2020 – May 2021, totalling $3.2 million.

However, children who received a Pandemic-EBT school benefit in a given month will not get the Pandemic-EBT childcare benefit for that month. Benefit amounts are $71.61 monthly October – January, and about half that amount monthly March – May. About $3.2 million in benefits has been issued to 5,816 Vermont households for October 2020 through May 2021. This covers 7,857 children under the age of six.

To learn more, read these Frequently-Asked Questions. Eligible households will get a letter explaining the benefit, and all eligible households should have received their benefit by July 30.