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North Marion reports big jump in school-meal participation; federal CEP now expected to reimburse 100%
Summary
District food-services director Laurie Gamboa reported a 25% year-over-year increase in participation and said ODE notified the district it will receive the additional CEP incentive reimbursements that bring the program to 100% reimbursement; more than $10,000 in family refunds have been issued.
Laurie Gamboa, the district’s director of food services, told the board that meal participation has increased substantially since the district adopted the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), with roughly 71% of students now eating on campus — a 25% increase over last year.
Gamboa said the district is serving an average of about 1,100 lunches per day and reported that the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) has notified the district it will issue additional CEP incentive reimbursements, bringing the district’s reimbursement to 100%. “We just actually received notification last week from ODE that they are going to issue additional incentive CEP reimbursements, which will now get us 100%,” Gamboa said.
The director explained that the federal CEP program guarantees higher reimbursement for free meals than prior paid-meal rates, citing a per-meal reimbursement example: a free meal is reimbursed at $4.54 per meal compared with about $0.44 for a paid meal. Gamboa said the district is issuing refunds to families with money remaining in meal accounts and has issued over $10,000 in refunds so far.
Board members asked about refund handling and whether the food-service department is financially standalone. Gamboa said the department operates as a separate financial entity and that refunds are being issued as cash pickups, with the district planning outreach to parents (particularly seniors) to distribute remaining funds.
The board also reviewed an administrative-rule change noting the district’s use of alternative community eligibility in the reimbursable meals AR; administration said the AR does not require board approval but should be noted in the record.
Next steps: administration will continue refund outreach and monitor CEP reimbursements as the state issues back payments for prior months.
