School Lunch Program Under Attack...

...Or, another example of how Sumner County fails to properly fund its schools.

This article details a recent School Board study session during which numerous questions were asked about the School Lunch program in Sumner County.

There seems to be little need for a full scale audit, however.

The School Lunch program is totally self-supporting. That is: all food, equipment, salaries and benefits are paid by the money collected from selling lunches. Also, the program is efficient at collecting debts -- at the end of last year, there was only a total of $700 in unpaid lunch accounts. In a system of 28,000 students, that's remarkable.

So, why are costs higher than surrounding counties?

As School Nutrition Director Linda Becker points out, in other systems, the County and/or the School Board pays the salaries of employees. That means the school lunch money collected only need cover the cost of equipment, utilities, and food. If the Board would pick up the $200,000+ annual cost of utilities currently being billed to the lunch program, the cost could be even lower.

The School Board might look at a budget that includes full funding of salaries for school nutrition employees -- and if they do so, they could then ask that school lunch prices be lowered significantly.