Transcript Paid Lunch Equity - New Mexico Public Education Department

Paid Lunch Equity
Presented by: Jess Saracino
Paid Lunch Equity (PLE)
• To ensure that sufficient funds are provided to the food
service account from paid lunches
Overview of Requirement
• School food authorities (SFAs) compare the average price for
paid lunches to the difference between the per meal Federal
reimbursement for free and paid lunches
Increasing Revenue for Paid Lunch
• If a SFA’s average price for lunches is less than the difference
between reimbursements, it must increase the price by 2%
plus inflation by either
• Increasing the average price charged for paid meal OR
• Adding non-Federal funds to the food service account
Increasing Paid Meal Prices
• In any year, any new average price increase may be—
• Rounded down to the nearest 5 cents
• Limited to a maximum of 10 cent
• SFAs have the flexibility to determine how they wish to
distribute the average price increase among their schools to
reach the new average lunch price
Increasing Paid Meal Prices
• SFAs may increase their average paid meal prices more than
the required amount
• A credit will be given to SFAs for any amount increase over
the required
• Alternatively, a short fall will be taken into account for SFAs
that do not meet the requirement
SY 2014-15 Price Lunch Equity
• In SY 2014-15, SFAs which, on average, charged less than
$2.65 for paid lunches in SY 2013-2014 must adjust their
average price or provide additional non-Federal funds to the
non-profit school food service account
• The amount of the per meal increase must be calculated
using 2 percent plus 2.27 percent, or 4.27 percent
Non-Federal Funding Source
• Financial support from non-Federal sources must be cash
for direct support for paid lunches, including but not
limited to:
– per-lunch reimbursements for paid meals provided by States,
counties, school districts and others
– funds provided by organizations
– any portion of State revenue matching funds that exceeds the
minimum and is provided for paid lunches; a proportion
attributable to paid lunches
Non-Federal Funding Sources
• Other allowable non-Federal sources:
– Profits earned from catering
– Profits earned from adult meals
Non-Federal Funding Sources
• Some examples of unallowable non-federal support are:
– in-kind contributions and a la carte sales
– any payments, including additional per-meal reimbursements,
provided specifically to support free and reduced price meals
New Flexibilities: Non-Federal Funding Source
• For SY 2013-14 and SY 2014-15, SFAs may count as a nonFederal source:
– Per-meal non-Federal reimbursement for any paid meal (including
breakfast, lunch, etc)
– Any funds provided by organizations for any paid meal
– Any proportion attributable to paid meals from direct payments
made from school district funds to support lunch service
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New Flexibilities: SFAs in Strong Financial
Positions
• For SY 2013-14 and SY 2014-15, SFAs can request an
exemption from the paid lunch equity requirement if the
SFA:
– Has been certified as meeting the meal pattern
– Can demonstrate that the required increase to paid lunch prices or
revenue contributions would cause the SFA to exceed the 3-month
operating balance limit
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New Flexibilities: SFAs in Strong Financial
Positions
• State agencies should create a procedure for exemption
requests and provide guidance to SFAs on how to
demonstrate that adding the revenues required would cause
the SFA to exceed the 3-month operating balance limit
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New Flexibilities: SFAs in Strong Financial
Positions
• At a minimum, SFAs should provide:
– Their year-end balance sheet including, total revenues, expenses
and net cash resources (page 105 of SMARRT guidance)
– Their PLE requirement calculations
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New Flexibilities: SFAs in Strong Financial
Positions
• At a minimum, SFAs should provide cont:
– Calculations showing the potential revenue generated from the
PLE requirement
– Calculations demonstrating that adding this revenue would cause
the SFA to exceed the 3-month operating balance limit
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New Flexibilities: SFAs in Strong Financial
Positions

When creating procedures for SFAs to apply for the
exemption, State agencies should use:

Guidance from the new Administrative Review Guidance Manual for
evaluating 3-month operating balances (“Comprehensive Review –
Maintenance of the Nonprofit School Food Service Account” module)
– Guidance from FNS on how to determine PLE requirement
(including the PLE tool)
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Monitoring Compliance
• Administrative Review Guidance Manual has been updated
to include monitoring for the paid lunch equity provision
• Paid Lunch Equity is part of the Resource Management
section of the administrative review
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Reporting Paid Lunch Prices
• SFAs must report the most frequently charged paid meal
price for–
• Elementary
• Middle
• High
• State agencies submit SFA data to FNS at end of November
• FNS is required to publish results
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SFA Paid Lunch Price Report
• FNS recently published the results of the FNS-828
• Results can be found in SP 41-2013:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/policy.htm
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SFA Paid Lunch Price Results
• In SY 2011-12, the average charged paid lunch price for
– Elementary schools
$2.08
– Middle Schools
$2.23
– High Schools
$2.24
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Paid Lunch Equity Tool
• A PLE tool is available on the FNS website. The tool calculates:
– Average Paid Lunch Price across the SFA
– New required average across SFA
– Non-federal source contribution amount
– Splitting the requirement between a price increase and non-federal
source contributions
• SY 2014-15 Price Lunch Equity Tool was issued in December 2013
(http://www.fns.usda.gov/paid-lunch-equity-school-year-20142015-calculations-and-tool)
Questions?