On Thursday March 8th, the Pickens County Board of Education (BOE), voted to increase school nutrition prices for the 2012-2013 school year.

The BOE approved a meal increase plan of .25 at breakfast, and .20 at lunch. This means that because of federal mandates breakfast will increase to $1.25 on all school levels, lunch will increase to $1.75 for elementary school students, $2.00 for high school and middle school students and teachers are also looking at a projected $2.75 lunch price based on other state mandated increases.

Pickens County School Nutrition Director, Emily Hanlin, explained to the BOE on Thursday why it was necessary to raise meal prices for the upcoming year.

“One of the big goals for my department in the school nutrition services is to provide safe and nutritious meals for our children but at a reasonable price.”

Hanlin told the board at the beginning of her presentation.

“Currently, Pickens County Schools serve around $850,000 meals per year.”

Hanlin stated.

“We have done a lot of things to serve a wide variety of children to meet their needs.”

Hanlin mentioned some of the things the School Nutrition Program (SNP) has done is adding a fresh entree salad bar at the Jasper Elementary School and a pizza and sub line at the Pickens County High School this year.

Hanlin then began to talk about what the situation is for the SNP next year.

“We have two things we are looking at,”

Hanlin told the board. She then explained to the BOE that being a federal funded program under the National School Lunch Program they have certain federal mandates they have to meet and in 2010 the United States government passed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids (HHFK) Act. Part of the HHFK Act requires the school district to charge the difference between what they get federaly funded for a free meal and what they get federaly funded for a full paid meal.

Hanlin said that this meant that for every student that gets a free meal they get a $2.77 reimbursement and for every child that gets a full paid meal, they get .26 cents, and then explained the difference in that is $2.51.

“What this rules says,”

Hanlin said,

“Is that our average meal price must be $2.51.”

Hanlin then told the BOE that currently their average price is about $1.69, nowhere near $2.51. She also told the board that every year the federal government ask them to access where they are and said based on their calculations the federal government told them they need to increase meals by .10 to meet the regulation next year. Hanlin said this is something they would have to look at every year to make sure they meet federal regulations.

“The other thing I have to look at is state mandates,”

Hanlin continued with her presentation

“According to state mandates,”

Hanlin said,

“We have to charge for adult meals what it costs to make that meal.”

This is part of The Georgia Department of Education, School Nutrition Criteria and Procedure MP-09-01. Hanlin said they would have to look at this next year too because this would affect teacher meal prices.

Hanlin also told the board that the other thing they are well aware of is that the State of Georgia is passing a law increasing benefit costs for their employees. Hanlin said that the SNP will soon have to pay $150 extra for each employee when it comes to employee benefits.The SNP currently pays $296 per employee per month for this expense and the cost will increase to $446 per employee per month in July. The increase is an employer expense which means it cannot be passed down for the employees to pay.

“When you add that to my current budget I am looking at a benefits expense of about $250,000 for next year”

Hanlin said.

“That’s an increase of $82,000 in benefit costs just for my department,”

Hanlin said that because of these increases they had to look at what they could cut in their program as an effort to keep the meal price increase as low as possible for the families of Pickens County. Hanlin told the board that a projected $44,000 will be removed from their annual expenditures. Some of the items that will be reduced include: small equipment for kitchens, computer replacement, travel expenses, software upgrades, and supplies such as paper and printing costs related to the distribution of menus and newsletters.

Hanlin then explained to the board before recommending the new meal prices that the SNP gets it revenues from only three places which are the federal government, the state government, and then the students and adults who buy school meals.

Hanlin added that the state has cut the SNP budget over 43% since 2009 and more budget cuts are expected to come next year. She then told the BOE that based on this information she thought these were the best recommendations she could make because she wants the SNP to remain self-sufficient and doesn’t want to have to ask the board for money.

After Hanlin made her recommendations she reminded the board that Pickens County has the cheapest lunch prices when it comes to neighboring counties and probably still would because the other counties would have to adhere to the mandates too. Hanlin also stated if a student eats breakfast and lunch all 180 days of the school year this would cost a family an extra $63 for that student. However, Hanlin brought light on the subject by saying that based on participation rates, most students do not eat breakfast and lunch every day of the year so this would on average only cost a family an extra $30 per child.