#41 - School Lunch Update
Reduced, and thereby the context for debt creation, is coming back this Fall.
You are reading 3Bits & Change, Joseph's email about building a direct to consumer business on the internet. Today’s email was written to a tune KCRW turned me on to, All in a Dream by LP Giobbi, DJ Tennis and Joseph Ashworth. Spotify built the station. I started writing. :) Enjoy.
Good morning,
It’s time for an update on school lunch programs. What are they going to look like this Fall?
Supply chains are strained, staffing is difficult and commodity costs are high. Best guesses are that there will be little change in these areas in the coming months.
Bit #1
The USDA made $943 million available for school lunch efforts via the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Funds will be distributed by State agencies to schools across the country. The purpose is to purchase domestically-grown foods for their meal programs. These funds will assist with sustained increases in supply costs in the market but not eliminate the pressures.
Bit #2
(Photo, signing something else :) )
The President signed the Keep Kids Feed Act (Senate bill) in the final days of June. Fantastic! For a summary check the School Nutrition Association’s release, here. For a fact sheet from the House Committee on Education and labor, click here.
The Act provides assistance for School Year 2022/23:
Increase federal reimbursements for every school lunch by 40 cents and every school breakfast by 15 cents, above the annual inflationary adjustment scheduled for July 1
Extend no-cost waivers, including those for schools unable to meet nutrition standards due to supply chain disruptions and to reduce administrative and reporting burdens
Extend waivers for 2022 summer meal programs
These adjustments will help.
More than 98% of school meal programs reported shortages of menu items, supplies and packaging, as well as items being discontinued by manufacturers, according to the School Nutrition Association. NPR
There it is - a swift kick-of-the-can, down the road. June 30, 2023 is the next target.
There is a chance the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health could address parts of the school nutrition as well. The conference is scheduled for September. We’ll see.
Bit #3
The status quo will return. The problem with school lunch and debt generation has not been addressed. The reduce-price meal program will return this Fall.
Key points in this context
Form completion rates, like previous years, will be a primary driver of debt for the 22/23 school year
A primary driver for how much school lunch debt is generated is where the income qualification line is drawn for the reduced-price program
Check the post from May 20 for more info on who qualifies and how the changes are calculated
Qualification criteria have not been adjusted
Unemployment is relatively low and wages are relatively high. We’ll see if it follows that more families are likely to have incomes near or just over “the line” of poverty than pre-pandemic (again, the calculations have not been adjusted for inflation, etc.)
Three full classes of kids will be asked fill out lunch forms for the first time this Fall. That’s 3 times as many as any recent “normal” year.
Let’s hope the completion rates are higher as a result of even more people being offered the chance to complete the form. However, it’s not likely.
Sum
While there are a few welcome changes in the new law it 1) does not raise the ceiling level of those who qualify for the program, 2) it does not change the context where individual student account debt gets created, 3) it’s easy to conclude that this Fall we’ll see more lunch debt created faster than ever before.
On Your Way
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Here come the warm days of August and harvest just after that!
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