LIVERMORE FALLS – SAD 36 has about $8,000 outstanding in student lunch charges and officials are determining the best way to collect it.
In the past, letters were sent out annually to parents to let them know how much they owed. Some parents were taken by surprise, Despres said.
About 200 students districtwide charged lunches during the last school year, he said.
SAD 36 directors voted unanimously earlier this month to eliminate the practice of charging lunches at the middle and high school levels. The administrations at these schools are being watchful to make sure students get proper nutrition, he said.
Superintendent Terry Despres said students are being granted two weeks to charge at the elementary school and parents are being notified of charges prior to that time expiring.
“What’s difficult,” Despres said, “is the district feels students should eat. Hungry children just don’t learn well.”
School districts across the state are dealing with the fact that “we have hungry children,” Despres said.
As a result, SAD 36 is reviewing procedures with Mike Sanborn, a consultant for the nutrition program.
SAD 36 is also modifying and changing many of its menus to provide a greater variety, he said.
The other area the district is concentrating on is reviewing past bills of the lunch charges.
“It was discovered through review of bills that many of the students that charged would have been eligible for free and reduced lunches if the paperwork had been filed by parents,” Despres said.
The will be a community meeting to inform and assist parents with the paperwork required by federal programs, he said.
The district is also working itself out of a $175,000 hole in the food service program.
The money is owed on paper to the district, Despres said.
The debt occurred over several years in the past and the district has been carrying it.
“We are going to remedy it by increasing our revenue through appropriate filings,” he said.
Voters in Livermore and Livermore Falls agreed in June to raise $50,000 to start reimbursing SAD 36’s general fund to reduce the debt.
It will take about four years to get out of the hole, he said.
Despres said the lunch program, which is supposed to be self-supporting, has come close to breaking even annually during the last couple years.
The total cost of the 2003 food service expenses was $433,187.89.
Sanborn, a consultant for Maine School Food Systems and Services and also the Lewiston schools food service director, is going to help SAD 36 get the system self-sufficient.
Lewiston was $250,000 in debt in the lunch program before it became self-supporting, Sanborn said.
He said he is aware of only three or four school systems in Maine that have self-supporting food service programs including Lewiston and Augusta.
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