Food-services director warns of rising costs, regulatory menu limits and unpaid meal debt

Madison Local's food-services director, Mr. Blankenship, told the board the program aims to break even but is facing rising food and employee costs, menu challenges tied to federal nutrition rules, and growing unpaid meal debt.

"Between labor and all of our other cost, it's about $1.4 million a year," Blankenship said, and described commodity aid (via a multi-district co-op) that contributes roughly $100,000 annually. He reported the district served about 330,000 meals this school year — roughly 2,000 meals per day — while participation rates have improved slightly even as enrollment declined.

Blankenship explained why the district has not adopted the Community Eligibility Provision: the district's identified student percentage (ISP) is about 52%, which would cover around 83% of meals at the free rate and leave a gap he estimated would cost approximately $120,000–$200,000 annually if CEP were adopted. He also said unpaid meal debt rose from about $38,000 at the start of the year to over $49,000 at the finish; roughly $20,000 of that is inactive debt from students no longer enrolled.

Operational constraints included new USDA sodium and calorie limits (reductions in sodium targets and calorie ceilings), which make some menu combinations noncompliant, and a recent change in state guidance that now allows whole milk at breakfast and lunch — a change that complicates calorie compliance for some meals.

Blankenship described program responses such as offer-versus-serve policies, share tables to reduce waste, menu cycles (four weeks for lunch, two for breakfast), and ongoing student feedback efforts (surveyed grades 7–11 with 169 responses). Board members approved a small transfer ($1,930) from the general fund to food service to cover permanent unpaid debt for students over age 19.