OCR Text |
Show : Hike In Lunch Charges i - Announced By School As of the beginning of school sessions following follow-ing the holiday break, the cost of school lunches will be increased, as a result of action taken by the Grand County School Board last Wednesday. Prices charged for : school lunch will be 40C per day for elementary-age elementary-age students and 45C for secondary. This amounts to an increase of IOC per day for each of these r categories, and will bring ' the total cost for an el- ementary-age student to $2.00 per week. The action by the School j Board came after a 3-i 3-i month period of closely studying costs involved I in the school lunch pro-gram. pro-gram. At the beginning I of this school year, it 'j was obvious to the Board I that the rising cost of food would have a mark-I mark-I ed effect on the program. It was the decision at I that time to study those , costs and take action dur-' dur-' ing the school year. ' "Our present projec-I projec-I tions indicated that by holding lunch costs at I the same level of the first three months of the I school year, we would be incurring a deficit of better bet-ter than $10 thousand in school lunch alone," , 1 Board President Sam I Taylor stated this week. I "We have always lost some money in the school lunch program, but the losses have been slight. I This year, however, the 'i Board felt that, costs to users of the program would have to follow the rising cost of food to a great degree, "he continued. contin-ued. The Board was told I by Superintendent Bill B. Meador that even by increasing in-creasing cost of meals to the above-mentioned levels, the program would still be running in the red. "Our losses will be kept to a minimum with the increases," he reported. Following the action on Wednesday, Mr. Meador was instructed by the Board to contact State School officials to determine de-termine if the action was within levels in other areas of the state. "We were told that many districts dis-tricts are facing the same problem and increasing costs accordingly," Mr. Meador said this week. He indicated that in this District, it cost an average aver-age of 62C to prepare a meal for school lunch. This cost is reduced only slightly by State and Federal Fe-deral funds, but not to the level of actual charges, char-ges, even under the new level. The Superintendent told the Board that many commodity com-modity items which have previously been coming to the District free from the Federal government are not available this year. Other items, such as meat and dairy products, pro-ducts, are not available on a contract basis as in past years and have shown tremendous increases. in-creases. , . ine -j j ii l i a u - - ed in the statewide program pro-gram of providing free lunches for low income families which cannot afford af-ford regular charges, and a number of families in Grand County are involved involv-ed in the program. Persons Per-sons with questions regarding re-garding the free lunch program, in which costs are reimbursed to the District by the State, should contact the District Dis-trict office for information. informa-tion. "We are reluctantly announcing an-nouncing the increased costs for the lunch program," pro-gram," President Taylor Tay-lor said. "Our only alternatives al-ternatives to this would be to incur impossible deficits in the program, or eliminate it altogether. altogeth-er. Neither of these alternatives al-ternatives was acceptable accept-able to the Grand County Coun-ty School Board," he concluded. con-cluded. . |