Going Up—The Price of Lunch in Lyme-Old Lyme Schools

Anyone for mystery meat? The federal government has pushed to raise the quality of school lunches in recent years but the economy has prompted prices to rise too. Which left the Lyme-Old Lyme Board of Education little choice last night but to bump up the prices of school lunches for the coming year.

The last price hike was in 2008, when school lunches increased from $2.15 to $2.30 for the district's elementary schools and from $2.65 to $2.80 for the middle and high schools. New minimum price requirements for the federal school lunch program, however, are now higher than that.

At its Aug. 1 meeting, the board approved raising the prices by 20 cents, from $2.30 to $2.50 for elementary schools and from $2.80 to $3 for the middle and high schools. The price is lower for elementary students because, quite frankly, they eat less!

Students whose incomes qualify them for free or discounted lunches won't be affected. However, the school district subsidizes all lunches, so the school budget will feel the impact of the increase. The good news is that the new prices probably won't change again for the next several years. 

"This year's subsidy was quite substantial," said School District Region 18 Business Manager Lynn Warren, adding that the school lost money on school lunches last school year.

A lot of that had to do with the high school cafeteria being largely out of commission through mid-January, she explained, and there were costs associated with food losses due to Tropical Storm Irene and power outages.

"We had a loss of $73,000 this year," she said. 

Revenue usually generated by food sales in the schools was also down, Warren said, because there weren't enough outlets in the high school to plug in all the vending machines and the food service provider also needed to buy additional trays.

Although increased enrollment boosted school lunch sales in the elementary schools, middle school food lunch sales were slower than normal, Warren said, although the reasons for that remain a mystery.

"This year was an anomaly," said Warren. "Next year we will have all cafeterias operational." 

School District Region 18 Board of Education members also voted to renew the contract with Chartwells Food Services to provide school meals for another year. However, if food sales show no improvement, Warren said she'd look for other providers when the contract ends.  

"If I don't see a big improvement pretty quickly, I will put it out to bid," she said. Still, she added, "We have to increase the price regardless of who runs the program."