Board: School Lunch Debt Stable

Claremont — The School Board received a little bit of good news this week on its efforts to reduce the school lunch debt that has grown to more than $20,000 already this school year.

At the end of the last school year, the district was left with about $32,000 owed by about 500 accounts. It was the first year the district used an outside vendor, The Abbey Group, for its meal program in all the schools.

Donations, including one for $29,000, paid off that debt but the hope that it would be a one-time problem vanished quickly when the board learned the debt from students who didn’t have money to pay for lunch was growing again this school year.

But on Wednesday, the board was told the debt actually decreased by $475 and although it remains at more than $20,000, there is hope among the board that the district is finally getting a handle on the problem.

Board member Jason Benware said the debt was mounting by about $5,000 a month until the latest month.

“We did not bleed another $5,000,” Benware said, adding the board is cautiously optimistic that improvement will continue. “It is still too early to tell but it seems we are going in the right direction.”

Benware said there are about 495 overdue accounts with the majority, 321, owed by families that pay the full price for breakfast or lunch and are not on free or reduced lunch. The amount owed from that group is about $16,500. Another 119 accounts are on reduced lunch and owe roughly $2,800 and there are 46 members of the school district’s staff that owe $725, Benware said.

After last year’s debt, the district hired a person to work several hours a week monitoring the program, but Benware could not say what effect that person has had in the debt being stabilized. He did however say the new policy of not allowing those who owe money to purchase a la carte items, such as ice cream, has been a factor. By law, all students must be allowed to have lunch, regardless of how much they owe.

Also Wednesday night, the board was told the pool of applicants to fill the superintendent’s position has been reduced to five with further interviews by the search committee to take place next week. None of the names of the applicants have been made public. Benware said he believes the original candidate pool had 14 applicants. He said the goal is to have the new superintendent hired this spring so that person will be available for the start of the fiscal year on July 1.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.