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Lincoln County schools approve small student lunch price increase, vote to bring food service in-house
Summary
The Lincoln County Board of Education approved a 5-cent increase in student lunch prices, voted to return food service to district (self-operation) after its management contractor sought larger increases, and authorized hiring and staffing changes in the nutrition program.
The Lincoln County Board of Education on June 2 approved a 5-cent increase in student lunch prices and voted to return the district’s food service to self-operation after rejecting a proposed contract increase from the current management company.
The move follows a multi-part presentation from school nutrition staff explaining that federal pandemic-era funds such as ESSER have expired, food and labor costs are rising, and the district must review prices annually under USDA guidance. The board also approved related personnel and procurement steps to support a transition to local operation.
School nutrition staff told the board the USDA’s paid lunch equity tool shows higher recommended prices but said the district has a positive fund balance and therefore did not need to adopt the tool’s full weighted rates. “If we were to follow their guidance, we would have to have a weighted lunch price … we would have to have a lunch price of 3.50 in elementary schools and 3.75 in high school,” a school nutrition director said. The director recommended a smaller increase, saying the district has not raised student prices in three years and that a nickel increase would be adequate while preserving a positive fund balance. The board approved the recommendation.
Board members were also told the district’s current food service management company proposed a contract increase larger than the company’s contractual maximum 3.5 percent and that accepting the new proposal would leave the district unable to break even. The nutrition director recommended returning to self operation; the board voted in favor of returning to self operation and directed staff to proceed with the transition.
To support in-house operation, the board approved hiring a new 200-day school nutrition field manager to be paid at the manager level on the school nutrition program salary schedule plus $5 per hour. The board also approved increasing the nutrition bookkeeper position from 110 to 120 days and asked staff to produce a staffing plan and cost estimates for the transition. The director said she had modeled worst-case pay/benefit costs and believes self-operation will still be less costly than paying a management fee.
The board authorized the superintendent or an executive committee to award upcoming food, ice cream and milk bids (scheduled to open June 16 and June 25) so vendors can stock warehouses and ensure on-time deliveries for the first quarter of the next school year. Members were told the state allows emergency procurement if negotiations with a contractor fail and that a typical re-procurement process can run from October to March.
Board discussion clarified that recurring personnel costs will rise if the district operates two cafeterias (as planned in a separate renovation project at Highland Rim), and that those recurring costs are separate from the one-time construction funding.
The board approved the menu-price change and associated staffing and procurement steps by voice vote.
