Schools
NJ School Lunch Probe Raises Questions of Oversight
State comptroller says more than 100 public employees or family members improperly got subsidized meals in schools
With news of a state probe revealing that more than 100 public employees or their family members improperly took advantage of federally-funded school lunch program, one key question comes to mind: Who’s minding the store?
The answer may be that nobody really is.
Before a bank of news cameras, State Comptroller Matthew Boxer Wednesday released his office’s report on alleged abuses in the $220 million program intended to feed the state’s poorest schoolchildren, with findings that 109 public employees or their family members in 15 districts wrongfully received school lunches for their children by either under-reporting incomes or not reporting them at all.
The comptroller’s investigators looked at records in just a sampling of districts, a mix of urban and suburban, from Newark and Paterson to Toms River and Pennsauken. The findings cover a three-year period, ending in 2012.
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Without naming names, Boxer said the 109 people were referred to the state’s Attorney General’s office for prosecution.
The program, which serves more than 410,000 students in the state, requires those receiving either free meals or subsidized meals to meet certain income thresholds. The local school district is responsible for spot-checking those records.
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