INDIANAPOLIS — While lawmakers debate tax reform at the Statehouse, advocates say a part of that package would get more food to the growing number of hungry children in Indiana.

The Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based anti-hunger group, recently reported the number of Indiana students receiving free and reduced-price school breakfasts rose 6.2 percent in 2006-07 over the previous school year, the fifth highest increase in the country.

Advocates say the data in FRAC’s December release of the “School Breakfast Scorecard 2007” added to the evidence that more kids in Indiana don’t have enough food to eat.

Single mother Lori Roberts of rural Otterbein has seen hunger affect her children, ages 18, 13 and 9.

“They’re moody. They’re not as happy as if they had full stomachs,” the nursing assistant said Friday after picking up some groceries at the St. John’s Episcopal Church/Lafayette Urban Ministry food pantry in Lafayette. “I’m sure they get in fights sometimes (over food).”

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ property tax reform plan working its way through the General Assembly would shift some of the state’s tax burden from property owners to consumers by increasing the state sales tax by a percentage point to 7 percent.

Patti O’Callaghan, president of the Indiana Coalition of Human Services, said such a shift will hurt working families because they need a greater portion of their earnings to cover basic needs such as groceries, rent and utility bills.

“If the sales tax (increase) is in that bill, then this disproportionately impacts low- and moderate-income families,” she said Friday.

The property tax bill that passed the House and is now before the state Senate would raise Indiana’s earned-income tax credit from 6 percent to 9 percent of the federal credit. The credit results in a tax refund when it exceeds the amount of taxes owed.

“That would get more money into the hands of people that need it,” O’Callaghan said of the tax credit rate increase. “We can’t encourage the Senate strongly enough to keep it in there.”

However, Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, has said the tax credit increase doesn’t go well with property tax reform and instead should be saved for the state budget talks next year.

Kids Count data compiled by the child advocacy group Annie E. Casey Foundation shows a steady growth since 2003 in the average number of Hoosiers receiving food stamps or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Also rising steadily were the rates of children living in poverty (17 percent in 2005) and eligible for free school lunches or textbooks (28 percent in 2007).

Bill Stanczykiewicz recalls that when he became president of the Indiana Youth Institute in 1998, the state had one of the lowest child poverty rates in the nation, but it has risen since the early 2000s.

He cited the erosion of well-paying manufacturing jobs from Indiana, replaced by lower-paying jobs.

“People have been able to find jobs but not at the salaries they had previously,” Stanczykiewicz said.

Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge Loretta Rush, in her 10th year of presiding over that county’s juvenile division, estimated the number of kids under 5 she sees living in poverty has risen by a third in the past few years.

She has also seen hunger affect a child’s mental health, school grades and whether or not they act out against others. Many kids, when they leave troubled families, will hoard food in their new foster homes.

“They’re not used to having food. They’re malnourished. They’re overly concerned about running out of food. You see that this is the environment that they came from,” Rush said.

The judge, when she speaks to church groups and other gatherings, urges audiences to volunteer for food pantries, soup kitchens and other services. She promotes the Backpack Program, which gives students a supply of food for weekends after they’ve received free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches at schools.

Still, she’s left bewildered by the need for such programs.

“The fact that we have childhood hunger in our country today is astonishing,” Rush said.