Revenues fall, but need to feed remains
Conn. school lunch programs seek to address hunger, increase bottom line
NEW HAVEN — Lucila Vaught is prepared to give her heart to students at Nathan Hale School — she’s just waiting for students to receive it.
Vaught, the lead cook for the school’s food service program, decorated the school cafeteria for
Valentine’s Day, with hearts dangling and dancing from the ceiling.
As New Haven plans to reopen some schools on Jan. 19, food service workers hope to put meals in the hands of students, instead of packaging meals and handing them off to adult guardians at
the door.
If New Haven’s schools were to not reopen this year, New Haven Budget Director Michael Gormany projected the program would operate at a deficit of about $4 million.
But the problem of falling revenue for school district food service programs is being experienced statewide, officials said. And the need to feed students remains.
“The number of meals schools are serving is down, certainly compared to when kids are in school,” said John Frassinelli, chief of the state State Department of Education’s Bureau of Health, Nutrition, Family Services and Adult Education.
Frassinelli said 159 Connecticut school meal service programs have taken advantage of a USDA waiver to operate under the rules that govern the summer meals program. Most notably, it lifts a requirement on congregate eating — allowing districts to send meals home with students or to deliver them to the community as long as food service staff can document to whom the meal went, and that the recipient is 18 years old or younger.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reimburses school districts that participate in its National School Lunch Program for each meal served. In a school district like New Haven, which is eligible for 100 percent free meals because of its high concentration of financial need, each lunch is worth $3.68 in federal reimbursements for the 2020-21 school year, according to the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service department; a free breakfast in New Haven is reimbursable at $2.26 per meal.
Other school districts eligible under the federal Community Eligibility Provision for the same reimbursement rate per meal as New Haven are Bridgeport and Hartford.
Elsewhere where there is less severe need, breakfast, for example, is reimbursable for $1.89 per meal.
Connecticut saw 284,286 students participating in school lunch programs in 2019, according to the USDA , an increase from 278,108 students in 2018. The USDA data did not show 2020 participation rates.
The USDA data shows $118,367,326 went to Connecticut for school lunch payments in 2019, an increase from the $105,334,629 in 2018 and $102,164,681 in 2017.
Addressing hunger
Even without all students learning remotely, the depopulating of most schools to encourage social distancing through use of a hybrid model of learning — in which students split their time learning from home and in person — means schools are serving fewer meals even with waivers from the USDA, and are receiving lower reimbursements.
Erica Biagetti, president of the School Nutrition Association of Connecticut trade association, said an informal survey sent to member school food service programs found about a 50 percent to 70 percent drop in meals disbursed daily in September.
Biagetti, who also is director of dining services for Guilford Public Schools, said that district has had to reduce its staffing levels “due to the decrease in participation and revenue.”
She said her program has been ambitious about increasing meal distribution to feed students and to increase revenue.
“On December 23rd, 2020, we were able to issue meal kits that included breakfast and lunch for the 12 days of winter break. We had outstanding support for the community and were able to serve over 20,000 meals for children,” she said.
Middletown school officials also noted the loss of revenue.
“Anyone can point to fewer meals purchased across the district and lament that. I’m sure it’s like that across the state. We’re down over last year about 75 percent,” said Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner.
“I bet you, though, every superintendent across the state will tell you that this is one of instances where revenues and meals purchased isn’t the right measuring stick,” he said. “Serving kids and their families is.”
Sharon Beadle, a spokeswoman for Stamford Public Schools, said that system also prioritized community hunger in its response to the meals issue.
“We quickly transformed our cafeterias into take-home meal operations and have provided more than 1 million meals to students since then. Non-congregated ‘grab and go’ meals are served in the school entrances, cafeterias and common areas to allow for social distancing,” she said.
Beadle said the in-school population during the pandemic has been about twothirds lower than the usual rate, but meal distribution has fallen only 17 percent.
“Revenue is down significantly compared to prior years because we are not collecting fees from students for meals. This may
cause the district to rely on our operating budget for expenses normally funded in part by the Food Service Program, such as repair, maintenance and equipment for our kitchens,” she said.
“While we carefully manage our operations, there has been natural team attrition, which has enabled us to keep the remainder of our team intact,” Beadle said.
Bethel, which provides free breakfast and lunch to students through the federal program, has seen revenue decline, while also focusing on feeding students.
“What we’re really trying to focus on and do is to keep communicating for families that we have funding for the rest of the year for free breakfast and lunch,” Superintendent Christine Carver said. “The more people who take advantage of it helps the district not go into deficit.”
Frassinelli said, “These meals are for your kids, regardless of your economic status.”
“We know we have a lot of families who are new to economic hardship and food insecurity, because we know families are taking advantage of food banks,” he said. “We need folks to understand that your kid 18 years of age and under can go to any program, it doesn’t have to be their own, to get two meals a day.”
Frassinelli said his department has heard from some families concerned that, by taking a free lunch, they are “taking meals away” from families with more severe need.
“You’re not taking a meal from anyone. There are plenty of meals,” he said.
Further, Frassinelli said school meals serve as a stimulus to local economies, not just for employing workers but also because the foods often come from local vendors.
“The federal money comes in and reimburses the school system, and the school system invests it into the state and state economy,” he said.
Budget balancing and meals
New Haven’s school system, which has about 20,000 students, must serve about 10,000 meals daily to maintain the costs of its operations. This year so far, the average number of meals served daily is around 3,000, Gormany, the budget director, said.
In some districts, however, meals served have continued at a high rate. Leaders of two Litchfield County school districts said they believe their food service programs will sustain themselves fairly well.
“For our families who are choosing 100 percent remote learning, they are used to picking up their meals within this weekly schedule as well,” said Torrington Superintendent of Schools Susan Lubomski.
In Winchester, a school system with about 575 students where the schools have had full in-person learning throughout the first semester, Superintendent of Schools Melony Brady-Shanley said the lunch program is “on target.”
“We continue to advertise meals for all families in our community. Over breaks, we also continued our meals program,” she said.
To communicate with families, Bethel’s school lunch program has its own Facebook page, where the food services director shares videos multiple times per week with details about meal pickup.
“Please, we want to feed you,” Amanda Riley, food service director, said in a December video. “There is no bounds on this. It’s not just for people who are food insecure. It is for everyone. We want to feed you guys
we really, really want the school lunch program to be successful and to stay afloat. And your kids eating is what’s going to help us do that.”
The district thought it would go into deficit in the spring and summer, but the program was popular, Carver said.
“Because we got so many people participating in it, it actually helped,” she said.
Riley’s message about mass participation in local school meals program is one that district officials are repeating across the state.
Biagetti, of the School Nutrition Association, said the organization is looking to increase community awareness that school meals in participating districts are free to everyone, regardless of need, and picking up a school lunch directly benefits the school system.
Biagetti said that in some municipalities, the local school district would be the largest restaurant in town, serving tens of thousands of meals daily.
“A lot of our partners are on the industry side: the milk we serve in schools comes from local dairies and local farms, giving to our neighbors and local communities, local distributors and businesses,” she said.
School food service budgets also covers more than staff and food, Biagetti said. During the pandemic, certain fixed costs have gone up.
“We have seen an increase in a lot of goods, a lot of items we used to get at a discounted rate are all skyrocketing in prices,” she said.
To accommodate graband-go-style meals, food service programs are using more packaging and paper than before, items that have increased in cost during the pandemic. She said one standard case of gloves would cost less than $20 before the pandemic hit the state in 2020, but now costs more than $100.
“There’s only so much in expenses and costs that we can overcome,” she said.
As for Vaught in the New Haven schools, her job has changed considerably, but she said her hours have not. That is because New Haven school officials have not made any cuts to the food service program during the pandemic, continuing to employ their staff in an effort to deliver as many meals to students as possible and to maintain a full workforce in preparation for when students do return to cafeterias.
“We love our kids. We are here for them,” Vaught said.