This memorandum provides notice to child nutrition program operators regarding the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (the 2025 Appropriations Act), March 15, 2025. This applies to state agencies administering, and local organizations operating, the USDA FNS child nutrition programs.
The purpose of this memorandum is to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any USDA Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children , Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option , of the many ways they can purchase local foods to serve in program meals.
This guidance is intended to assist state agencies and program operators of the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program in meeting the longstanding federal requirement to collect race and ethnicity data of program participants.
Geographic Preference Option Questions and Answers
USDA and eight other federal agencies recently published a final rule entitled, Partnerships With Faith-Based and Neighborhood Organizations at 89 FR 15671 (final rule). The final rule amended USDA regulations at 7 CFR part 16 related to equal opportunity for faith-based organizations that operate USDA programs and religious protections for USDA program beneficiaries.
This memorandum provides a detailed explanation of the expanded geographic preference option.
This memorandum replaces the WIC Informational Memorandum dated Aug. 10, 2022. In particular, the USDA FNS State Systems Office (SSO) has revised the section titled Threshold for FNS Review of EBT Projects after Statewide EBT. Handbook 901 will be updated to reflect this revised guidance.
Recently, FNS has received a number of questions related to buying local meat, poultry, game, and eggs; this memorandum seeks to clarify the regulatory requirements related to food safety and answer specific questions related to these products with a series of questions and answers.
The previous version of this memorandum contained incorrect references to state agencies throughout. FNS is correcting this memorandum to remove the incorrect references and so that it more clearly and accurately reflects the federal regulations. This memorandum notifies state agencies and child nutrition program operators of the changes made by OMB to the federal informal procurement method, micro-purchases and the micro-purchase threshold.
This memorandum, SP20 CACFP07 SFSP06-2019, notifies all child nutrition program state agencies and program operators of guidance the Food and Nutrition Service received from the Office of Management and Budget, OMB M-18-18, authorizing increases to the value of the micro-purchase and simplified acquisition thresholds.