School Lunch Prices Going Up Again

If you pay for your children’s school lunches, you’ll have to ante up a little more this coming school year.
The DeKalb County Board of Education Tuesday night voted to increase the price of school lunches 10 cents, going from $1.35 to $1.45 for pre-kindergarten students to fifth graders and from $1.60 to $1.70 for sixth through twelfth graders. Breakfast prices will apparently remain the same at $1.00 for all students.
This is the second year in a row the school board has voted to hike school lunch prices by ten cents.
Stephanie Walker, School Nutrition Supervisor, said prices have to increase a little each year until they get to $2.51 under USDA regulations, or the school system risks losing its increase in food reimbursement rates. “There is a regulation stating that we have to go up ten cents on our lunch prices every year until we get to $2.51. I don’t agree with this but it is a regulation that has to be passed in order for us to be in compliance with the federal people. My proposal is to increase by ten cents. If we are not within regulations for the coming school year, there is a possibility that we won’t get our increase in reimbursement rates. We are asking for the minimum increase,” she said.
Prices for adults at school will increase to $2.50. “There is a calculation and we have to take our highest price, which looking ahead would be $1.70, plus our commodity value of twenty three cents. We also add the payment we get for the pay kids. Our reimbursement rate for the pay kids is twenty eight cents. With this increase that is coming about, that would take us over $2.25, so we would need to increase adult prices to $2.50 to take us within compliance,” said Walker.