The purpose of this memorandum is to provide guidance for state agencies and program operators on the status of nationwide waivers of statutory and regulatory requirements in the Summer Food Service Program.
This is the 2017 Edition of Overcoming the Unpaid Meal Challenge: Proven Strategies from Our Nation’s Schools. This best practice guide is designed to support state agencies and local program operators in their efforts to find workable solutions to the challenge of unpaid meal charges.
This question and answer memorandum is designed to provide an overview of policies related to unpaid meal charges and to address common questions FNS has received from state agencies, school food authorities, and local program operators.
The purpose of this memorandum is to strongly encourage local educational agencies to accept eligibility determinations from a transferring student’s former LEA to minimize disruptions in meal benefits for low-income students and avoid student debt resulting from unpaid meal charges.
There has been confusion about how unpaid meal charges must be handled when all collection efforts have been exhausted. To help address these situations, this memorandum clarifies the processes of designating delinquent debt that has been determined to be uncollectable as bad debt and obtaining assistance to offset bad debt losses.
Program changes made by this rule include easing restrictions on participation by private nonprofit organizations and food service management companies, streamlining rules for schools to encourage Program sponsorship, and reducing paperwork burdens for state agencies.
This final rule makes a number of technical changes to the regulations governing the National School Lunch Program, the Special Milk Program for Children, the School Breakfast Program, state administrative expense funds, determining eligibility for free and reduced price meals and free milk in schools.
On Oct. 31, 1998, President Clinton signed the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 1998. Several provisions in this law affect the administration of SFSP. We intend to publish regulations to implement these provisions as soon as possible.