Recent communications between FNS and state agency program staff during procurement trainings and management evaluations conducted in fiscal year 2014-2015 indicated a need for guidance on competitive procurement standards. This page lists where to find the standards.
Program integrity is essential in all aspects of program administration and state agencies contribute to this by overseeing program operations. To this end, this memorandum provides guidance on state agency oversight of program operator procurement procedures while FNS is currently developing a Local Agency Procurement Review Tool to aid state agencies.
FNS has received many questions related to implementation of 2 CFR Part 200 and understands that changes to financial and procurement systems are costly and require time to develop and implement. Therefore, FNS will work with state agencies during this transition period and will seek to answer questions and provide guidance as needed.
This document contains a correction to the final rule published in the Federal Register on March 2, 2015, "Professional Standards for State and Local School Nutrition Programs Personnel as Required by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010."
This is the tenth in a series of annual reports to examine administrative errors incurred during the local educational agency’s (LEA) approval process of household applications for free and reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). This report examines administrative error estimates in student certification for free and reduced-price NSLP meals.
This report responds to the requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Direct certification is a process conducted by the states and by local educational agencies to certify eligible children for free meals without the need for household applications.
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.
OMB published the Super-Circular at 78 FR 78590 on Dec. 26, 2013, for USDA and other federal grant-making agencies. Section 200.10(a) requires federal agencies to implement the policies and procedures set out in the Super-Circular by promulgating regulations effective Dec. 26, 2014. USDA published such regulations at 2 CFR Parts 400, 415, 416, et al. (79 FR 75981, Dec. 19, 2014).
This final rule establishes minimum professional standards for school nutrition personnel who manage and operate the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs.