CLAREMONT — Despite efforts by SAU 6 personnel to collect overdue amounts from families for the school lunch program, the debt has surpassed $32,000.
That’s even though the amount due — which topped $30,000 at the end of the 2017-18 school year — was wiped clean by donations a year ago.
At Wednesday’s School Board meeting, SAU 6 Director of Finance Operations & Human Resources Richard Seaman updated the board on the debt and efforts to keep it in check. He also said he has received inquiries from groups interested in making donations.
Seaman said the debt was just shy of $26,000 at the end of the 2018-19 school year, when the district, with the help of the food service provider, The Abbey Group, discussed ways to collect the outstanding amounts. Almost three months into this semester, it has grown by about $6,000.
“This is a topic that continues to challenge us,” Seaman said.
The increase has come despite the district employing “best practices” to try to collect the debt, he said, including certified letters and follow-up phone calls to families with outstanding balances. The district is also encouraging families eligible for free or reduced-price lunch to complete the application, which would prevent them from accruing debt, but Seaman said very few come in.
Seaman told the board the district will adhere to its policy of providing a meal to all students, regardless of how much each owes.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Seaman suggested providing free or reduced-price lunch for all students, as Bluff Elementary School does.
“We may lose some revenue doing that but we eliminate this ongoing challenge of providing meals for kids and then coming back and say we are not being paid for them,” Seaman said.
School Board member Jason Benware said Bluff offers free meals because of the demographics of the area, including a high poverty rate, and he doesn’t believe all schools would qualify for federal free lunch standards. Therefore, he said, if the district provides lunch at no cost to all students, taxpayers may have to subsidize a portion of the expense. Seaman said he has not researched which schools qualify for the federal standards.
Meanwhile, Seaman said officials have submitted the district’s applications to the state for food service for September and October, something it failed to do under the previous business manager the last two years. That oversight cost the district about $340,000 in federal reimbursements.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
