| Title | Comment Period End Date |
|---|---|
| Comment Request: Uniform Grant Application for Non-Entitlement Discretionary Grants |
We received a question as to how to treat disaster relief employment income received from a National Emergency Grant.
We have been asked whether to adopt for food stamp benefit purposes the $48.17 average cost for prescription drug purchases that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) calculated. The answer is yes, with some caveats. We have prepared two new Q&As to outline how this should work.
In this report we discuss our progress in deriving state participation rates for the working poor. We build upon recent studies examining national participation rates for socioeconomic and demographic subgroups and rates for states among the entire eligible population.
Eating whole grain products has long been advocated by health and nutrition experts. We encourage school food authorities to inquire about the availability of whole grain products when developing product specifications and making their procurement plans next year.
The Reauthorization Act of 2004 contains several requirements regarding irradiated USDA commodity product that we want to bring to your attention.
Recently, we have been asked 1) whether an equipment manufacturer would violate Department regulation 7 CFR Part 3016.60(b) if the equipment manufacturer writes the bid specifications for a school food authority (SFA) when that manufacturer does not directly sell its products to the SFA, but uses dealers or distributors instead and 2), would a food service management company (FSMC) violate §3016.60(b), if the FSMC drafted a provision to amend an existing SFA-FSMC contract
We have been contacted by a representative of a food service management company who expressed concern that some state agencies may not be aware of FNS’ position on rebates, discounts, and other applicable credits in school food authority-FSMC cost reimbursable contracts. Our position remains unchanged.
We are issuing policy that will allow states to consider the information contained in an Upward Bound participant’s application to be equivalent to that of the Summer Food Service Program meal application when making eligibility determinations to participant in the SFSP.
As you know, in August 2000, the procurement requirements for the child nutrition programs were moved from Department regulation 7 CFR Part 3015 to 7 CFR Parts 3016 and 3019. Attached are a number of questions and answers we have received concerning how these requirements changed the procedures for procurements paid with State Administrative Expense Funds.
We have been asked to clarify SFSP requirements for school food authorities (SFAs) in year-round contracts with food service management companies (FSMCs), specifically whether SFSP meals may be included in a contract that was competitively procured on cost-plus-fixed fee basis.