Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 200 / Thursday, October 16, 2014 / Notices 62095 

1SN–OPS survey results did not provide detailed 

information regarding how schools vary their 

approach based on the duration of unpaid meal 

status. Among other areas, FNS requests in this RFI 

information regarding how schools modify their 

approach based on the duration of unpaid meal 

status. 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Food and Nutrition Service 

Request for Information: Unpaid Meal 

Charges 

AGENCY: Food and Nutrition Service, 

USDA. 

ACTION: Notice; Request for Information. 

SUMMARY: The National School Lunch 

and School Breakfast Programs play a 

critical role in ensuring that America’s 

children have access to nutritious food. 

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) 

subsidizes all school meals in 

participating schools in various ways 

including reimbursement for meals 

served based on the eligibility of the 

child receiving the meal. FNS 

reimburses schools at higher rates for 

those meals served to children eligible 

for free meals and reduced price meals. 

Schools are responsible for establishing 

paid meal prices for children who do 

not receive free or reduced price meals 

and whose meals are thus reimbursed 

by FNS at lower rates. If children do not 

have the required payment for meals on 

the day of service, schools may extend 

credit to the child for the meal. 

Generally, this process entails the 

school allowing the child to ‘‘charge’’ 

the meal with the understanding that 

the child will reimburse or pay back the 

school for the meal provided. Since 

credit policies are usually established at 

the school district level, they vary 

across the nation and within States and 

are not monitored by FNS. 

FNS considers access to healthy 

school meals including nutritious foods 

a critical function of the National 

School Lunch and School Breakfast 

Programs. Evidence shows that children 

who regularly eat healthy school meals 

perform better in the classroom and are 

less likely to be overweight. However, 

FNS also recognizes that allowing 

children to ‘‘charge’’ school meals can 

have financial impacts on individual 

schools and even school districts. This 

is especially true when meal charges are 

not subsequently paid, results in large 

unpaid meal charges and potential 

financial losses. 

Section 143 of the Healthy, HungerFree Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) requires 

FNS—in conjunction with States and 

participating local educational agencies 

(LEAs)—to examine and report on the 

current policies and practices of State 

agencies and LEAs regarding extending 

credit to children by allowing them to 

‘‘charge’’ the cost of school meals on the 

day of service. 

As required by the HHFKA, this 

examination must include the feasibility 

of establishing national standards for 

extending credit to children by allowing 

meal charges, establishing national 

charges for alternate meals which might 

be served, and providing 

recommendations for implementing 

those standards. At this time, FNS is 

seeking information from all affected 

parties regarding State and LEA current 

policies regarding extending credit to 

children by allowing them to ‘‘charge’’ 

the cost of school meals on the day of 

service. Specifically, FNS is interested 

in commenters providing details of 

policies and procedures in their State or 

LEA and the advantages and challenges 

associated with those procedures. 

DATES: To be assured of consideration, 

written information must be submitted 

or postmarked on or before January 14, 

2015. 

ADDRESSES: The Food and Nutrition 

Service, USDA, invites the submission 

of the requested information through 

one of the following methods: 

• Preferred method: Submit 

information through the Federal 

eRulemaking Portal at http://

www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 

instructions for submissions. 

• Mail: Submissions should be 

addressed to Jessica Saracino, Program 

Analyst, School Programs Branch, Child 

Nutrition Programs, Food and Nutrition 

Service, P.O. Box 66740, Saint Louis, 

MO 63166–6740. 

All information properly and timely 

submitted, using one of the two 

methods described above, in response to 

this request for information will be 

included in the record and will be made 

available to the public on the Internet at 

http://www.regulations.gov. Please be 

advised that the substance of the 

information provided and the identity of 

the individuals or entities submitting it 

will be subject to public disclosure. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Jessica Saracino, Program Analyst, Child 

Nutrition Programs, Food and Nutrition 

Service at (703) 305–2590. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 

143 of the HHFKA (Pub. L. 111–296; 

December 13, 2010) requires USDA, in 

conjunction with States and 

participating LEAs, to examine the 

current policies and practices of States 

and LEAs regarding extending credit to 

children to pay the cost of their 

reimbursable school lunches and 

breakfasts. As part of this examination, 

FNS must prepare a report on the 

feasibility of establishing national 

standards for meal charges and alternate 

meals and provide recommendations for 

implementing those standards. As 

required by the HHFKA, when creating 

this report, FNS will take into account: 

• The impact of overt identification 

on children; that is, the potential for 

children’s eligibility or unpaid meal 

status to become apparent to other 

children, school staff, or others, as result 

of a school’s implementation of the 

implementation of credit procedures; 

• The manner in which the affected 

households (i.e., those which may incur 

debt) are provided with assistance in 

establishing eligibility for free or 

reduced price school meals; and 

• The potential financial impact on 

LEAs. 

The Special Nutrition Program 

Operations Study (SN–OPS) is a 

multiyear, nationally representative 

study designed to provide FNS with a 

snapshot of current State and LEA 

policies and practices, including 

information on school meal standards, 

competitive foods standards, school 

lunch pricing and accounting. The 

information in this first year study 

(School Year 2011–12) provides a 

baseline for observing the improvements 

resulting from the implementation of 

the HHFKA. As part of this study, FNS 

examined State and local meal charge 

policies. This study revealed that in 

School Year 2011–12, LEAs varied in 

their policies for serving meals to 

students who do not have funds to pay 

for meals. School policies range from 

denying a meal to serving a 

reimbursable meal or alternate meal to 

students.1 Over 80% of schools served 

a meal to students that were unable to 

pay, either with reimbursable meals, or 

an alternative meal. Only 3 percent of 

school districts indicated that they did 

not serve meals at all to students who 

were unable to pay. In terms of revenue, 

on average, for all the LEAs that 

reported that they lost some revenue as 

a result of unpaid meals, the net 

revenue lost was less than 1 percent of 

total expenditures for the year. Despite 

this, for a small number of LEAs unpaid 

meal charges is a significant issue with 

very large debts associated with unpaid 

charges. For additional information on 

this study, go here: http://

www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/

SNOPSYear1.pdf. While the SN–OPS 

study provides good background and a 

starting point for the required report on 

this issue, FNS would like to gather 

more detailed information on State and 

local meal charge policies and 

procedures to help inform FNS’ 

recommendation on the feasibility of 


asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
62096 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 200 / Thursday, October 16, 2014 / Notices 

establishing a national standard for meal 

charges and alternate meals and best 

practices guidance. While the FNS 

study showed that unpaid debt is not a 

systemic issue, for some schools and 

school districts unpaid debt has become 

a greater problem given other budgetary 

restraints. To assist these schools and 

school districts, FNS is seeking 

comments, concerns and suggestions on 

the extent of the problems and what has 

been done across the nation to address 

this issue of maintaining access to meals 

and also a school food service in strong 

financial standing. 

FNS’ objective is to receive input from 

a broad spectrum of parties that may be 

affected by policies on a number of 

topics relating to meal charges. These 

include students and their parents, 

school district officials, school food 

service staff, State agency officials, and 

the general public. FNS has an interest 

in working with States and school 

districts to ensure that schools are 

providing access to healthy meals to all 

children, but are also able to pay for the 

costs that they incur. FNS is particularly 

interested in learning if there is a 

relationship between a student who is 

extended ‘‘credit’’ and that child’s 

eligibility for free and reduced priced 

meals. 

FNS intends to use the information it 

receives to prepare a report on the 

feasibility of establishing national 

standards for meal charges and the 

provision of alternate meals and to 

provide recommendations for 

implementing those standards, as 

required by the HHFKA. Information 

submitted to FNS will also help to 

develop ‘‘Best Practices’’ guidance for 

meal charge policies and assist FNS in 

developing recommendations for 

Congressional review. 

To assist in developing comments, 

FNS is seeking input regarding the 

following questions. FNS welcomes 

comments to all questions below. 

1. Does your school district have a 

written policy on meal charges and/or 

when alternate meals may be provided? 

If so, please attach your policy or a link 

to a Web site containing the policy to 

your comment. 

2. Which officials are responsible for 

developing the policies (e.g., school 

district business officials, the school 

food service director, school principals, 

etc.)? 

3. Are there any grade level 

differences; for example, are only 

children below high school allowed to 

charge meals? 

4. May children who do not have their 

payment or who have outstanding 

charges/unpaid balance select any 

reimbursable meal or are children 

offered alternate meals in lieu of the 

selection of reimbursable meals? If 

alternate meals are offered, what types 

of foods are offered in alternate meals? 

5. Are reimbursable alternate meals 

available? If so, at what eligibility rate 

is your school district claiming these 

meals? 

6. Does your school’s unpaid meal 

charge policy include a modified 

approach for handling students based 

on the duration of unpaid meal status, 

and if so, how? 

7. Are there any consequences outside 

the meal service for students who do not 

have their meal payment for the day 

(e.g., the student may not participate in 

extracurricular activities or report cards 

are not released, etc)? 

8. How does the school ensure the 

children’s eligibility status does not 

become apparent to other children or 

school staff as result of the school’s 

implementation of the credit 

procedures? 

9. Does a child’s unpaid meal status 

become apparent to other children or 

school staff? If so, how? Are there 

measures you take to minimize the 

chances these children are identified 

and what do you find to be the most (or 

least) effective strategies? 

10. Is any financial support to the 

school food service from the school 

district provided to offset costs related 

to the meal charges policy? 

11. How are parents informed of the 

policies about charging meals, limits on 

charges, low account balances, 

outstanding balances, and methods of 

payment? 

12. Have outstanding debts increased 

or decreased in your school district over 

the last 3 school years? 

13. What steps does your school 

district provide to assist families with 

meal charges to apply for free or 

reduced price meals? 

14. Are children with outstanding 

debts mostly those: 

a. Eligible for reduced price meals; 

b. Potentially eligible for free or 

reduced price but who have not applied 

or been certified; or 

c. Who applied but were not eligible? 

15. How do outstanding meal 

payments affect the ability of food 

service to meet the meal pattern 

requirements? 

16. Does your school district have a la 

carte sales? If so, are children allowed 

to charge these items and how is 

repayment of any charges handled? 

17. If your school district does not 

have a meal charge policy, how does 

that affect children who do not have 

their meal payment for the day? 

When preparing information in 

response to this request, please keep in 

mind that FNS is seeking comments 

within the current statutory structure of 

the school meals programs. For 

example, while serving all meals at no 

cost to all students would eliminate the 

need for credit policies; this approach 

would require statutory change as 

currently, schools may only offer all 

students free meals if they are operating 

under a Special Provision, including the 

Community Eligibility Provision. This 

approach is beyond the scope of this 

information request. FNS appreciates 

your thoughtful and responsive 

comments. 

Dated: October 8, 2014. 

Jeffrey J. Tribiano, 

Acting Administrator, Food and Nutrition 

Service. 

[FR Doc. 2014–24575 Filed 10–15–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–30–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Food and Nutrition Service 

Request for Information: Supplemental 

Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) 

Revision of the Program and Budget 

Summary Statement Part B—Program 

Activity Statement 

AGENCY: Food and Nutrition Service 

(FNS), USDA. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: Each year, Supplemental 

Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) 

State agencies are required to submit the 

Program and Budget Summary 

Statement Part B, Program Activity 

Statement (FNS–366B) to the Food 

Nutrition Service (FNS) per 7 CFR 

272.2(c)(ii). Information collected on 

this form includes fraud activity for the 

reporting fiscal year such as a total 

number of fraud referrals, 

investigations, prosecutions, 

disqualification consent agreements 

(DCA), administrative disqualification 

hearings (ADH) and ADH waivers. This 

form further contains data on program 

dollars associated with pre-certification 

and post-certification fraud 

investigations, as well as program 

dollars that may be recovered resulting 

from an ADH or prosecution. This 

information is reported not later than 45 

days after the end of the State agency’s 

fiscal year, which is typically August 

15th for most States. FNS is 

contemplating proposed changes to this 

form in order to improve the reliability 

and accuracy of State integrity reporting 

by revising data field definitions, such 

as what constitutes an investigation, for 

clarity and consistency. FNS is also 

considering an increase in the frequency 


asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES