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Show Utah Foundation Reports on State's Handling of School Lunch Program Utah's school lunch program cost $3.4 million and provided pro-vided lunches for 37 of Utah's 175,000 public school children chil-dren last year. These facts were reported this week by Utah Foundation, the private non-profit tax research organization. or-ganization. The Foundation study reveals that the average school lunch in Utah last year cost 32.6 cents. On the average, tarticipants paid 18:1 cents, or slightly more than one-half the cost of the meal. The remainder of the cost was subsidized by the federal and state governments. Last year the 60-man Public School Survey Commission recommended rec-ommended that the school lunch program be continued but that it be finance! without state funds. Utah's 1053 Special Session Ses-sion of the Legislature did not pass two measures which would have withdrawn state funds from the school lunch program. However, How-ever, the question is expected to be an issue again the 1955 Legislature. Leg-islature. Started as Relief Measure According to the Foundation study the school lunch program originated during the depression depres-sion years largely as a relief measure sponsored by the federal government (W.P.A.) in conjunction conjunc-tion with local Parent-Teachers' Associations and other civic organizations. or-ganizations. It has since become a permanent part of most school programs in Utah. Since 1943, the program has been adminis tered by the state and the local lo-cal school districts. In 1953 when it was expected that federal support would be withdrawn from the school lunch program, the Legislature adopted a 4'! excise tax on liquors and wines to raise approximately $250,000 a year, the report continues. contin-ues. During the first year, the tax yielded $392,000 for the school lunch program, or 57 more than the proponents indicated indi-cated was needed. In addition, the school lunch program continued con-tinued to receive Federal aid which never actually was withdrawn. with-drawn. Standards Raised The report points out that since 1943 school lunch standards have been raised from a hot soup supplement sup-plement type of program to a complete meal designed to provide pro-vide at least one-third to one-half one-half a child's daily nutritional requirements. During this same period, participation in the program pro-gram has expanded about two and one half times. The Utah Foundation notes that Utah is one of only eight states that provides state funds for school lunch program operating operat-ing in the local districts. It is a federal requirement, however, that states furnish administration administra-tion facilities in order to participate parti-cipate in federal school lunch aid. Adults Participate Last year, 5.3ro of all school lunches served in Utah were served to adults. Although federal fed-eral policy indicates that charges charg-es to adults should be at least equal to the cost to children plus the amount of federal aid received, re-ceived, Foundation analysts reveal re-veal that 11 Utah school districts dis-tricts charged adults the same prices as they did children for the lunches. Administration officials of-ficials also indicated that some schools provide meals without charge to teachers and other adults in return lor supervising the children in the lunchroom. The Foundation report concludes con-cludes by noting that Utah serves a smaller percentage of free lunches than most of the other states. In fiscal 1953, free lunches lunch-es in Utah constituted about 3.3 of the total meals served. This percentage is less than one third the average for the nation. na-tion. Only foil." states furnished a lower percentage of free lunches lunch-es than did Utah. |