Grand Island schools say CEP raised participation and reimbursement but warn nutrition fund faces rising costs

At its July 10, 2025, meeting, the Grand Island Public Schools Board of Education heard that the district's shift to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) increased meal participation and federal and state reimbursements, but that rising food and personnel costs have created a structural imbalance in the district's nutrition services fund.

The presentation, given during the information item on CEP for the 2024–25 school year, outlined three full prior years of fund activity and projections for the current fiscal year. District finance staff reported the nutrition fund has paid off its debt but has drawn down cash reserves over the last full fiscal year because expenditures — primarily food and payroll — rose faster than revenues despite higher CEP reimbursements.

Board members were told the fund started the 2023–24 year with roughly $3.2 million, recorded about $6.4 million in revenue and $7.7 million in expenses, and ended that year at just under $2.0 million — a decline of roughly $1.2 million attributed mainly to higher food and payroll costs. Officials noted the Nebraska Department of Education had earlier urged districts to reduce unusually large reserves, which contributed to a one-time increase in certain expenditures (debt retirement) in the most recent full year.

"This is an expenditure problem, not a CEP program issue," a district finance speaker said, explaining that CEP replaced paid-meal revenue with higher federal and state reimbursements but did not eliminate growing costs of food and staff. He added that if current trends continue the district would not likely return the fund to prior reserve levels within a single year and estimated it could take two to three years to restore long-term balance if only modest improvement is achieved.

Nutrition services director Oscar (last name not specified in the record) told the board CEP substantially increased student access to meals. He said the district served about 80,000 more meals in the last school year than the prior year, roughly 270 additional lunches and 222 additional breakfasts per school day on average. Oscar reported the district averaged about 6,878 lunches per day and close to 3,000 breakfasts per day, with total increases of about 43,497 lunches and roughly 36,000 breakfasts over the year. He said higher meal counts produced higher reimbursements under CEP; on average, lunch reimbursements per meal were about $0.81 higher under CEP than under a full-pay model.

Board discussion included questions about participation rates and reimbursement. Oscar said districtwide average daily meal participation is near 70 percent and that high school participation runs about 50–60 percent, which he compared favorably to national averages he recalled at 30–40 percent. The finance presenter and Oscar also noted summer feeding is reimbursed under a separate program; the district is projecting roughly $75,000 in summer program reimbursements this year.

Officials emphasized that CEP reduced administrative burden by eliminating free-and-reduced application processing and removed negative meal-account debt from the general fund because the USDA rules for CEP prevent end-of-year negative balances from falling to the district general fund. They also warned that federal and state reimbursement increases are not automatically linked to local food-price inflation.

The board received the CEP information as an information item; no action was taken on CEP at the meeting.

The district recommended continued close monitoring and administrative measures to reduce food and payroll costs, and warned a future transfer from the general fund could be necessary if expenditures continue to outpace revenue and cost-control steps prove insufficient.

The presentation and board questions reflected estimates and projections; speakers noted year-end figures and some interest postings were not yet final.