U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, has introduced legislation that would expand access to the federal government?s free and reduced-price lunch program ? even though doubt remains about the number of ineligible (read: wealthy) students who nevertheless participate in the entitlement.

As reported by the Ironton Tribune:

Despite the impressive local and statewide statistics, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 14 percent of eligible students are not enrolled in reduced school meal programs.

Most students or their parents that do not register cite reasons from the complicated application process to the ?social stigma? some students feel comes with being enrolled in the low-income lunch program.

Brown’s proposed $2 billion legislation is geared to reduce paperwork and administration costs by having school districts use data from Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to directly enroll students in the meal programs.

It?s noteworthy that Congress and school systems are looking for new ways to get students signed up for F&R lunch, but no one is addressing the question of cheating. That?s the case even though a report by Mathematica Policy Research found that 15 percent of students receive too many benefits, and verification summaries suggest fraud, too.

Closer to home, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools recently developed new ways to get more students signed up for F&R lunch. The school system cross-referenced a list of students who receive food stamps with those enrolled in the school lunch program, which resulted in 1,000 more students getting on the F&R lunch dole.

Meanwhile, the school system has declined to examine the possibility of fraud in the system after a verification summary suggested that as much as 68 percent of students enrolled might be ineligible.