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Food service: district in Community Eligibility Provision; state funding changes may affect milk program and school payment apps
Summary
Food service staff said all four schools are enrolled in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), increasing breakfast and lunch participation; they warned a local‑food/milk grant was reduced and noted a new law will affect vendor fees for the MySchoolBucks payment platform.
Food service director Doug Porter told the board the district successfully enrolled all four buildings in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which reduced paid‑meal barriers and substantially increased meal participation: the district’s breakfast participation grew from about 4% to 33% and lunches rose from roughly 48–50% to about 76%.
Porter said CEP is financed through a combination of federal and state reimbursement and that the state currently funds the remaining share that makes CEP economically viable for the district. He warned that state funding remains a legislative budget item and that if state support were reduced the district might need to reconsider CEP participation in future years.
Porter also said a separate state/local grant that helped the district purchase local Hudson Valley milk — about $70,000 this year — was cut, and the district may need to use cafeteria funds to replace that local‑product support next year. Separately, he said a new law changes how vendor fees for online school payment vendors are handled and may require the district to decide whether to absorb transaction fees for parents who use MySchoolBucks; the law’s implementation could affect the vendor fee structure starting in July.
The director reported the cafeteria fund is in strong operating condition, with roughly four to five months of working capital on hand and projected to reach about six months by the end of the fiscal year. He said the district will reapply to continue CEP and monitor legislative developments.
Board members asked clarifying questions about the funding mechanics for CEP, the state reimbursement timelines, and contingency options if state support were reduced; staff said they would re‑evaluate the program if funding changes jeopardized fiscal sustainability.
