The Board of Education’s finance committee Tuesday tabled a proposal to raise school lunch prices by 30 percent over the next three years and challenged officials to instead look at cutting costs and boosting student demand for meals.
Dann Carlson, the Department of Education’s assistant superintendent overseeing food services at public schools, told the board the increases are "absolutely necessary" due to rising food prices and increased labor costs. He said the state hasn’t raised meal prices since 2011.
The department proposed raising lunch prices in increments of 25 cents a year, to $3.25 from $2.50 for high-schoolers by 2017-18 and to $3 from $2.25 for elementary and middle school students. Breakfast prices would go up by 10 cents each year.
Pricing would remain the same under federal requirements for low-income families who qualify for reduced-price meals: 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.
Carlson said the increases would bring prices into compliance with a 2009 state law that requires the department to set meal prices at a level "not less than half" the cost of preparing the meal.
But board members criticized the department for recommending price hikes over proposals to reduce costs and increase the number of students eating school lunches.
The food services branch is one of the DOE’s largest operations, spending about $105 million a year and serving 107,000 lunches a day across its 255 schools. The branch’s budget comes from a combination of state funding, revenues from students who pay full price, and reimbursements from the federal government for lunches served to low-income students.
Revenues from students paying full price — representing about 35 percent of lunches served — have dropped every year since the department’s last price increase. Revenues last year dropped by 10 percent to $23.3 million.
Meanwhile, nearly 60 percent of lunches served are free or reduced-price. The federal government reimburses the state up to $3.55 per free lunch served and up to $3.15 for each reduced-price lunch served. (Under federal income guidelines, a family of four cannot earn more than $50,746 to receive the reduced rate, while a family of four earning $35,659 or less qualifies for free meals.)
"We just can’t keep solving our problems on the backs of our parents and our students," said BOE Chairman Don Horner. "I think we need to look internally at how do we reduce our food costs without impacting quality and, more importantly, how do we increase kids buying lunch."
BOE Finance Chairman Brian De Lima deferred action on the proposal until next month’s committee meeting. He suggested the department consider an outside review of ways to reduce costs, similar to a DOE-commissioned study that recommended reforms to rein in escalating school bus costs a few years ago.
"If we’re going to buy in to an increase based on a legislative requirement that we charge one-half of the cost to prepare the meal, we need to understand that the department is engaged in a process to reduce costs," De Lima said.
The department says it’s still working to implement recommendations in a 2013 DOE audit of the program that found an "unacceptable" lack of oversight, monitoring and accountability of purchases. It also faulted the branch for a lack of technology in menu planning, ordering and inventory, noting that inventory at some schools is taken on index cards.
Horner said he’d like to see schools follow the lead of Waipahu High School, for example, to increase the number of students eating school lunches. He said the school adapted its menus after surveying students.
"When I visit schools, I’m seeing as many as 50 percent of students not eating in the cafeteria. They’re going to the convenience store across the street," Horner said after the meeting.
In order to receive reimbursements from the National School Lunch Program, schools have to meet federal nutrition standards that restrict calories, sodium, saturated fat and trans fat in meals, and require schools to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Online menus show some Oahu high schools this week are serving lunches that include chicken patty on a whole-grain bun; breaded pork patty with whipped potatoes; baked Creole macaroni; and fish nuggets with rice.
"What we’re asking for is not a simple solution of raising prices, but the more difficult task of finding out why our revenues from full-priced meals are going down," Horner said. "We’re saying let’s address demand and take a look at overall food service costs."
