FNS developed the Access, Participation, Eligibility and Certification (APEC) study series, which collects and analyzes data from a nationally representative sample of schools and school food authorities (SFAs) about every 5 years. APEC allows FNS to develop a national estimate of erroneous payment rates and amounts in three key areas: certification error, meal claiming error and aggregation error. FNS recently completed APEC II, which collected data in School Year 2012-2013 and this report summarizes those findings.
The study examined the costs charged to SFAs (reported costs), as well as those costs incurred by the school district in support of SFA operations, but not charged to the SFA (unreported costs). Together, the reported costs and the unreported costs are the full cost of meal production.
This action excludes certain utility reimbursements made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) from income consideration in determining Food Stamp Program eligibility and benefits.
This document contains a correction to the final regulation (59 FR 5697) published on Feb. 8, 1994. The regulations concerned certain provisions of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act Amendments of 1991 that dealt with disabled persons in group homes and income exclusions for Plans for Achieving Self-Support.