28-01-2025
School cafeterias face triple whammy: weather closures, rising food and labor costs
Jan. 27—Haywood County Schools cafeterias posted a loss of $700,000 last year. And school closures from winter weather and the flood isn't helping matters this year.
The impact of snow days has been felt by Haywood County School's school cafeteria staff, not only in the amount of food that is lost, but for many, in hits to their own paychecks.
While the system expects some closures due to winter weather, the challenges began much earlier this school year when Helene closed schools for 11 days thanks to massive flooding, and school nutrition staff members were out of work.
Typically, school nutrition workers are paid an hourly rate, but with no hours, some were set to get a check that was missing two weeks' worth of pay.
State to the rescue
Following Helene, the state stepped in and provided relief funding for school nutrition employees — an action unusual for the state. School nutrition employees, as well as food and equipment costs, are typically funded directly by the sale of lunches and breakfasts.
"It's huge. Missing 11 days out of one paycheck is a big hit for somebody. We were fortunate the state was able to provide that," said School Nutrition Director Alison Francis. "This was an extra special instance where they helped with that."
More recently, school nutrition employees have been missing days due to snow and ice. Management still works on remote learning days, but the rest of the staff is only there when students are, meaning their checks can be diminished by the weather.
Food spoilage
The other issue presented by storms comes with the food actually being served. With fresh produce and milk on hand, things can quickly spoil and leave the school nutrition holding the bag.
That issue was never more present than following Helene.
"We ended up losing about $14,000 in food due to things spoiling because we were out of school or (had) freezers going down," Francis said.
Inventory lost has been submitted to the state, however, and Francis is hopeful they can get at least some reimbursement for the food.
Some of that loss came down to products simply going out of date, such as what school nutrition staff had to face during a recent winter weather surge that rolled through Haywood County.
"We still have some minor food loss with fresh produce or milk, but for the most part we're able to use the food that's in our freezer," Francis said.
They may also cut down on their next order so they can use more of the food in the freezer and not allow it to go bad.
Power loss means food loss
During Helene, however, there was another hurdle — power outages.
All of the food at Meadowbrook Elementary was lost, while food from other schools was transported to the school nutrition program's central storage off of Crabtree Road.
"We had four schools where we had to go in and move food to our warehouse," Francis said.
Additionally, two schools were set up and giving out free lunches to kids under 18 during Helene, allowing school nutrition to put some of that produce and milk to use instead of allowing it to spoil.
Wage challenges
Storms aren't the only challenge that school nutrition is currently facing.
A few years ago, the minimum wage for staff jumped from $11.85 to $15.
"It was a huge jump for us, to be able to cover that difference," Francis said.
On top of that, the cost of the food itself has gone up.
"Food costs have continued to increase since COVID. That's hurt us as well," Francis said.
More need equals more revenue
Currently, every student in Haywood County is able to eat for free thanks to funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, that funding isn't fully covering every meal.
The payments are based on the number of students who automatically qualify for free lunch. Students who receive SNAP or Medicaid or are considered homeless or migrants are among those who fall into that category.
Currently, just under 55% of students fall into that category. To truly break even, the school district would need about 62% of students in that category.
Because of the 7% gap, Haywood County school nutrition receives $4.54 for 87% of the meals it serves. For the other 13%, the USDA, only reimburses 53 cents.
That reimbursement is crucial to the school nutrition program as the money it brings in from the sale of lunches, or in this case from the USDA reimbursements, directly goes back into covering labor, food and equipment costs.
"That reimbursement rate hasn't been high enough to cover all of that for us," Francis said.
Francis said that the more that students eat at school, the more they are able to bridge that gap in funding.
"It helps. The more students that eat, the more reimbursement we get," she said.
It's been a tough year for school nutrition, and it comes on the heels of a $700,000 loss last year — nearly half of the money that the program had in its savings account.
School nutrition is theoretically supposed to be self-supporting — operating more like a business than a normal government program. Francis said the goal is to simply break even.
"It's nice to have some extra funds in our savings account so we're not nervous about how we end every year," she said. "When we do have extra funds, those go towards purchasing equipment and other supplies that we need."
