Feds cheer skyrocketing dependency on ‘free’ School Breakfast Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Federal officials are patting themselves on the back for increasing dependence on the national school breakfast program, citing explosive growth with free meals in particular.

Data released by the Economic Research Service shows the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s School Breakfast Program currently serves about 13.5 million students in about 90,000 schools nationwide, statistics that have more than doubled since 1996.

“Throughout the history of the School Breakfast Program, the number of participating children was considerably smaller than in the National School Lunch Program and is still less than half. Nevertheless, as the breakfast program finding increased – and grants to schools to help start up the program became more available – the number of schools participating in the breakfast program has steadily grown, making it available to more students,” according to a USDA blog.

The ERS data is displayed in a “Charts of Note” series that highlights research on food assistance and other topics, and was undoubtedly chosen because of the striking exponential rise in free and total lunches served to students since the program was founded in 1975.

The program launched with roughly 2 million total participants, with about 1.5 million going toward free food and the rest toward reduced or full priced meals. By 1995, total participation had eclipsed 6 million with about 5 million in free meals. Last year the program provided food to more than 13.5 million students, including more than 10 million free meals, according to the ERS chart.

“A notable increase in the free and reduced-price share in both (the breakfast and lunch) programs in recent years likely reflects more children qualifying and choosing to participate during the 2007-2009 recession, along with policy changes that have simplified the process of program qualification,” the USDA blog opines.

Those policy changes can have a profound impact on participation. In recent years the USDA has expanded eligibility qualifications to allow for “community eligibility” in places where a high proportion of students qualify for free or reduced priced meals.

In those places, all students receive free meals from the government, as long as schools comply with very strict regulations on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole grains, and nutrition restrictions championed by first lady Michelle Obama.

And there’s also the breakfast in the classroom program that’s becoming increasingly popular in many school districts. Teachers in some school districts, however, have resisted that program because it cuts into class time and creates sanitation issues with younger students.

Cynthis Schaefer, superintendent in Keyes, California told the Ceres Courier the district implemented the program for a year by she canceled breakfasts in the classroom after teachers complained and the local teachers union filed a grievance.

“There are a number of issues to be worked out regarding the program, including employment issues that need to be negotiated with the teachers union,” she said.

In other places, like the UCLA Community School, parents have lead a revolt against the breakfast in the classroom program because they believe it’s offensive to parents and wastes valuable instructional time.

“They say if kids don’t eat they won’t learn,” mother Lilian Ramos told the Associated Press. “The truth is that many of our kids come to school already having eaten. They come here to study.”

The federal school food programs are also getting a boost from liberal lawmakers who seem determined to steer their constituents toward dependency.

“State legislation in the form of AB 1240 authored by Asseblymen Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, and Tony Thurmond, D-Oakland, is seeking to take such issues out of local control by mandating that lower income districts be forced to participate in Breakfast in the Classroom,” the Ceres Courier reports.

And there’s little question why. As the Food Research and Action Center points out, “it pays” to serve government meals.

“For the 2015-2016 school year, CACFP sponsors receive $1.66 for each breakfast served, $3.07 per lunch or dinner served, and $0.84 per snack. CACFP sponsors can additionally choose to receive the value of commodities (or cash in lieu of commodities), $0.2375 for July 2015 through June 2016, for each lunch and dinner served, which would total about $3.31 per lunch or dinner served,” a FRAC fact sheet reads.

Via: EAG News

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5 GAO employees indicted for stealing school lunches for their kids

The dollar amount involved in this scheme of employees of the General Accountability Office to steal school lunches for their children is miniscule; about $13,000. But there is a larger lesson that can be drawn from it; the sense of entitlement of government workers that gives them leave to abuse the public purse and steal from taxpayers.

Roll Call:

Five employees with the Government Accountability Office, and one GAO employee’s spouse, were indicted Tuesday for working to illegally obtain reduced-price lunches for their children. 

The indictment resulted from the legislative branch agency’s own investigation into the school meals program, which found some of the GAO’s employees applied for the program and underreported their income to gain access to the reduced-price lunches. After the agency discovered the illegal activity, the GAO reported applications to the agency’s inspector general. 

“There is no excuse for stealing funds intended to go to children whose parents cannot afford the school lunches,” Maryland’s Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said in a news release announcing the indictment. “Their actions are made even worse by the fact that some of them claimed to have not just low income, but no income at all, even though they were working full-time jobs at the GAO.” 

The GAO, which notes on its website that it is often referred to as the “congressional watchdog,” investigates federal spending. GAO spokesman Chuck Young wrote in an email to CQ Roll Call that GAO employees were “both disappointed and surprised” to learn their colleagues were potentially committing fraud. 

“We will now be monitoring the judicial process and then determine what personnel actions might be appropriate,” Young said. Young later noted all of the employees indicted are administrative support personnel. 

According to the news release, between 2010 and 2014, the employees’ children received more than $13,000 in reduced-price lunches. The GAO employees named in the indictment include Lynette Mundey, an internal auditor and an outgoing member of the county’s board of education; Barbara Rowley; Jamilah Reid; Tracy Williams; Charlene Savoy; and James Pickney, whose wife is a GAO employee. Pickney allegedly failed to disclose his wife’s income, which rendered his family ineligible for the reduced lunch program. 

Each employee was charged with two counts of welfare fraud, two counts of submitting a false application for public assistance and one count of a theft scheme, according to a copy of the indictment.

This incident speaks to the general lack of concern harbored by many bureaucrats regarding how taxpayer money is spent. Up and down government we see managers taking expensive trips for "conferences" to Hawaii and even overseas. Other employees game the system to receive perks and pay to which they are not entitled. The rot is systemic and results from a lack of competent management at the top.

In any large organization, you will find graft and corruption. But the culture in government seems to magnify and encourage corruption at all levels by fostering that sense of entitlement not found in the private sector.

Via: American Thinker

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‘It’s heartbreaking:’ Denver school board members get a taste of Michelle O lunches

DENVER – School district administrators in Denver recently got a taste of what students have been complaining about: a school lunch with a cold chicken patty on a rock-hard burnt bun, frozen strawberries and a “really hard” pear.

That was the meal served to school board member Rosemary Rodriguez at Kepner Middle School in Denver May 12, after Kepner student Stephanie Torres took her complaints about the food to the school board, Chalkbeat.org reports.

Aside from the unappetizing offerings, the cafeteria at Kepner ran out of at least one food item during the visit, which also included representatives from Padres & Jovenes Unidos – a social services organization.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Padres health justice organizer Monica Acosta said of the lunch prepared under federal food guidelines championed by first lady Michelle Obama. “That’s the type of food Kepner students have been having all year long.”

The visit, however, did spur changes in Kepner’s cafeteria. Food workers now thaw the fruit, and no longer serve expired milk. School officials also plan to offer more choices in the future.

Kepner Middle School and others in the district have also experienced a wave of negative feedback on the “Breakfast after the Bell” program implemented in 2013. That program is also subject to food nutrition laws imposed on schools in the National School Lunch Program as part of Obama school food overhaul.

Since the new limits on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole wheat, and other nutritional elements went into effect in 2012, at least 1.2 million students nationwide have dropped out of the National School Lunch Program in favor of packed lunches from home.

The changes also spawned massive food waste – roughly $1 billion per year – because of regulations that stipulate that all students must receive a fruit or vegetable each day, which most simply toss in the trash.

The waste has been a serious problem in many school districts, one of many reasons hundreds of U.S. schools have ditched the National School Lunch Program to serve students food they’ll actually eat.

“We’re trying to waste less food,” Greater Johnstown School District board president Paul VanDenburgh recently told the Leader Herald.

The district removed its Jansen Avenue School from the federal lunch program effective June 30 over complaints about waste, as well as the tight nutrition restrictions that have run the school’s lunch program into the red.

Greater Johnstown superintendent Robert DeLilli told school board members in a recent meeting the plan is to see how the Jansen lunch program improves without the federal restrictions before considering the move for other schools, as well.

“It’s kind of like a pilot to see how it works,” he said, according to the Leader Herald. “We’ll wait and see how it goes.”

Other schools are turning to recommended recipes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help prepare nutritious and tasty foods under the federal rules, but a recent survey shows those recipes don’t seem to be much help.

Via: EAG News

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District insists kids like eating pumpkin parfaits, roasted brussel sprouts

DONEGAL, Pa. – Students like eating brussel sprouts. No really they do – at least according to Donegal, Pennsylvania school officials.

They insist kids like the new school lunch menu changes inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama, which reportedly include pumpkin parfaits and fresh roasted brussel sprouts.

But April Hershey, superintendent in the nearby Warwick district, admitted all is not well.

“We struggle with continued mandates that limit what we know to be best practices for our students,” she told Lancaster Online.

Despite claiming to know better than the Washington, D.C bureaucrats handing down those mandates, Hershey’s district has no plans to drop out of the National School Lunch Program.

An equally dire warning was reported from Cocalico School District superintendent Bruce Sensenig.

District officials “are on the edge of actually pricing ourselves out of business. We cannot raise our prices enough to pay for what is required by the mandates to in turn serve what is legally considered ‘good’ foods,” he says.

Participation is down in Cocalico’s program, which has resulted in higher lunch prices for students.

Common sense says higher prices will drive down consumption. But who cares about Economics 101 when there’s “healthy” food to be eaten?

Eastern Lancaster County superintendent Robert Hollister tells the newspaper his district would not consider dropping out of Michelle Obama’s lunch plan because they “depend” on the federal funds.

Students have asked not to have fruit and vegetable servings put on their trays, “but we must do that anyway,” he told the paper.

Michelle Obama recently claimed credit for creating a “cultural shift” with her so-called anti-obesity efforts.

“Right now, we’re truly at a pivotal moment, a tipping point when the message is just starting to break through,” the first lady said. “And if we keep pushing forward we have the potential to transform the health of an entire generation of young people,” she was quoted as saying.

But if that doesn’t succeed, at least the Greek yogurt and brussel sprout lobbyists will be happy.

Via: EAG

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