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Middletown food services: rising meal participation and grants but health‑insurance and snow days strain finances
Summary
Food‑services Director Randall Mael reported growth in meal participation and multiple grants supporting new programs, while warning the operation relies on reimbursements and district subsidies for health insurance and is vulnerable to lost revenue from snow days and changes to SNAP eligibility.
Randall Mael, Middletown’s Director of Food Services, told the Budget Committee the department has grown meal participation markedly in recent years and runs as a federally regulated, reimbursable operation that depends on meal counts for revenue.
"We are a federally regulated and federally funded enterprise operation," Mael said. He described the district as a Community Eligibility Provision participant, meaning all students receive free breakfast and lunch under the program that uses identified student percentages to calculate reimbursement rates. Mael said about 80% of meals are currently reimbursed at the federal free rate and projected food‑service revenue for the year is roughly $3.48…
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