This guidance provides steps state agencies and school administrators can take to improve access to school meal programs through the application, certification, and verification processes so that all eligible children in NSLP and SBP schools have the opportunity to participate in the school meal programs.
The purpose of this memorandum is to strongly encourage local educational agencies to accept eligibility determinations from a transferring student’s former LEA to minimize disruptions in meal benefits for low-income students and avoid student debt resulting from unpaid meal charges.
There has been confusion about how unpaid meal charges must be handled when all collection efforts have been exhausted. To help address these situations, this memorandum clarifies the processes of designating delinquent debt that has been determined to be uncollectable as bad debt and obtaining assistance to offset bad debt losses.
This memo and attachments refer to updated guidance for state agencies and school food authorities contracting with food service management companies.
This memorandum updates SP31–2014, State Agency Prior Approval Process for School Food Authority (SFA) Equipment Purchases, to include new regulation citations for the cost principles related to the purchase of equipment.
In January 2012, the “Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs,” final rule was published and required schools to serve a greater quantity and variety of fruits and vegetables and more whole grains/whole grain-rich products. To support the updated meal pattern requirements and assist school food operators with menu planning, an inter-agency agreement was established between USDA, FNS and USDA, Agricultural Research Service to conduct analytical yield studies.
This memorandum shares newly developed resources intended to promote reporting efficiency. The attached “Reporting Timeline” and “Reporting Table” were developed to assist with tracking the diverse reports required to be submitted by state agencies to the Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) throughout the fiscal year.
Section 206 of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) amended section 12 of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act by adding paragraph (q) on nonprogram foods. This amendment established requirements related to the revenue from the sale of nonprogram foods.
The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act requires school food authorities to report their paid reimbursable lunch prices to the state agency for publication by FNS.
FNS is aware that school food authorities and program operators may be operating NSLP, SBP, and other child nutrition programs, in a way that includes offering reimbursable meals and non-program foods (a la carte sales, catering, adult meals, etc.) using foods from popular franchise restaurants through a franchise agreement.