This report summarizes the results of the school year 2007-08 application verification process for the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 permits direct verification of school meal applications and requires FNS to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of direct verification by school districts.
This report responds to the legislative requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Under direct certification, children are determined eligible for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested programs.
WIC provides food, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and health care and social service referrals to nutritionally at-risk low-income pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children through age 4. This report offers updated estimates of the population that met these criteria and was eligible for WIC benefits in each of the years 1994 through 2007.
This report provides information on the participation patterns of infants and children who were enrolled in WIC from fiscal years 2001 through 2003.
This is the first of a series of annual reports which will assess the administrative error associated with school food authorities’ approval of applications for free and reduced-price school meals. More than 95 percent of students who were approved for benefits on the basis of an application were receiving correct benefits, based on the information in the application files. In school year 2004/05, 3.5 percent of all students who submitted an application for free/reduced-price meal benefits had an administrative error in the processing of their applications.
Using Food Stamp Quality Control data from fiscal year 2000, this analysis suggests that the simplified reporting policies adopted by states in 2004 could have lowered error rates by 1.2 to 1.5 percentage points.
Fit WIC can help the nation’s premier early childhood food and nutrition program work more effectively to reduce and prevent unhealthy weight among our children.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 directed the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a study of the feasibility of using computer technology to reduce over-certification, waste, fraud and abuse in the National School Lunch Program.