School board ends districtwide free-meal program, will require paid meals with free/reduced applications

The Churchill County School District Board of Trustees voted 6–1 to remove all district schools from the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), requiring paid meals next school year and reintroducing free and reduced-price meal applications.

The vote followed more than two hours of discussion about changing federal reimbursement rates, possible groupings of schools to preserve CEP at some sites, capital projects tied to food service and the district’s available food-service fund balance. Trustee Whitaker moved to remove all schools from CEP; Trustee McFadden seconded the motion. The motion passed 6–1.

District administrators said the district’s CEP reimbursement rate has fallen from about 90.98% to roughly 65.01% for the coming school year under a Department of Agriculture calculation. Using that new rate, staff estimated the district could need to subsidize food service at roughly $41,799.31 per month under one projection; other grouping scenarios produced lower or higher estimates. Administrators and the district’s food-service contractor, Chartwells, told trustees that moving back to a paid model…