Feds pg 1 3-1-12
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- Category: Past Issues
Feds
require
school
lunch
price hike
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
With federal mandates and deadlines standing in the wings, local school lunch program directors, will be looking to raise the price of school lunches.
Barry Sbordy, director of the Putnam public schools' department of food services, in a report to the Board of Education in Putnam, said, "The Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2012 requires school food authorities taking part in the National School Lunch Program to ensure that schools are providing the same level of support for lunches served to students who are not eligible for free or reduced-price lunches." The law went into effect last July.
Sbordy said the directors must compare the average price charged for paid lunches to the difference between the higher federal reimbursement provided for free lunches and the lower federal reimbursement provided for paid lunches. If the average paid lunch price is less than the difference, the school system must either gradually adjust average prices or provide non-federal funding to cover the difference. He said that comes out to $2.51 in Putnam and Putnam schools receive non-federal support for the program in the form of a $.10 per lunch payment from the state as a certified Healthy Foods School District.
Therefore, he said, Putnam must reach an average paid lunch price of $2.41 by July 1, 2014.
The fairest way to get there, he told the board, would be to increase the price of lunches at different rates for each of the three schools: elementary, middle and high schools. The board last week approved the following plan, according to board spokesperson J. Scott Pempek:
The Putnam Elementary School lunch prices will go up by $.15 July 1 and then go up another $.15 July 1, 2014 for a total increase of $.30. The Middle School lunch prices will go up $.25 this July and another $.20 July 1, 2014 for a total of $.45. The high school's lunches will go up $.20 this July and another $.15 in July 2014 for a total increase of $.35.
That will mean that the current price for elementary school lunches will go from the current $1.95 to $2.25 by July 1, 2014; middle school from $1.95 to $2.40 and high school from $2.30 currently to $2.65. That averages the lunch prices out to $2.43 by July 1, 2014, over the federally required price of $2.41.
Sbordy pointed out that many school systems, especially those with high schools, have gone to a tier system. "Implementing a three-tier pricing system will help create a more fair and equitable paid lunch rate. Furthermore, lunch price increases will be more evenly distributed among the schools," he said. He pointed out that the system of rate increased "will have the least impact on families and is the fairest option to all involved."
Sbordy told the board that Brooklyn, Thompson and Pomfret increased their prices $.25 for this year and plan to implement another increase in two years.
Pempek said he believes Putnam has more than 50 percent of its school children in the free or reduced-price lunch programs.