Approve the Proposed Emergency Meal Policy for Grades K-12 (Business Division)

During the past three years, Student Nutrition Services (SNS) has incurred on average $2.2 million each year from students who have charged emergency meals by coming to school without lunch money. The SNS Manager and administrative staff at each site spend an excessive amount of time attempting to collect these charges through phone calls, written correspondence, and conferences with parents. Even with the initiatives listed above, there are still parents who will not pay for their child's meal charges. SNS has absorbed the following uncollected meal balances over the past three years: for FY 2003 the total was $532,063; for FY 2004 the total was $604,728; and for FY 2005 the total equals $521,620. SNS does not have the resources to continue absorbing this debt from parents. Accumulated debt prevents us from expending monies for other important initiatives, such as kitchen renovations, equipment replacement, and technology enhancements. Furthermore, the time and effort to collect the $2 million in charges annually could be spent in other areas that would directly influence a child, such as nutrition education. To our knowledge, the School District of Hillsborough County is the only district that allows unlimited charging of meals. It is important to note that school food service programs in other districts are not incurring emergency meal debt because of established policies (see attached survey). By establishing a district-wide policy, whereas parents and school staff know the “rules,” the emergency meal debt would be greatly reduced. Also, please see the attached document which includes the proposed emergency meal policy for elementary and secondary schools.

N.A.

A reduction in the amount of debt incurred by Student Nutrition Services would average $553,000 per year