The California Department of Education (CDE) is providing advance notice that 2026 SUN Bucks Universal Benefits Application (UBA) Processing and Verification Report will launch in September 2026 for applicable Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) to complete and submit.
The report is intended for use by LEAs with school sites that operate the Community Eligibility Provision and/or Provision 2 under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and/or School Breakfast Program (SBP). This report is only for the SUN Bucks Program and information collected aligns with the federal program oversight requirements and supports the LEA funding apportionments for SUN Bucks.
LEAs operating the NSLP/SBP using only Standard Counting and Claiming do not collect UBAs and therefore will not complete the 2026 SUN Bucks UBA Processing and Verification Report.
In preparation, LEAs required to complete this report should gather and retain the following information:
- Total number of UBAs received, processed, approved, and denied between July 1, 2025, and August 31, 2026,
- Total number of individual students represented in approved and denied UBAs
- UBA verification activity data, including:
- Sample size
- Verification results
- UBAs verified for cause
- UBAs directly verified
LEAs that submitted 2026 UBA data to the Education Data Collection System for more than one district or charter school will receive separate reporting tools for each County District code.
Please note: Separate from the 2026 SUN Bucks UBA Processing and Verification Report is the NSLP/SBP verification process. All LEAs operating the NSLP/SBP must still complete the annual School Food Authority Verification Collection Report in the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System (CNIPS) when it opens in November 2026 for NSLP meal application verification purposes.
If you have questions regarding this report, please contact the SUN Bucks team at SummerEBT@cde.ca.gov.
Thank you for your continued partnership and support of California’s SUN Bucks program.