This guidance serves as a general reminder to state agencies about the importance of complying with the Buy American provisions that are found in the regulations of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.
This memorandum provides instructions on how to reconcile the physical inventory conducted at a distributing agency- or subdistributing agency-level storage facility with the book inventory required to be maintained for that facility.
We continue to receive questions regarding procurements in the child nutrition programs, particularly in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Attached are the most recently received questions and answers.
It has come to our attention that a number of state agencies and school food authorities are failing to maintain appropriate records for procurement transactions occurring in connection with the child nutrition programs.
This guidance was issued upon our learning that a number of school food authorities were not drafting their own specifications and procurement documents for certain software acquisitions but instead directly incorporating a list of features written by a prospective bidder.
This memorandum provides guidance on how to reconcile physical and book inventories as part of the required annual physical inventory of distributing agency and sub-distributing agency storage facilities, and provides guidance on offsetting inventory shortages and overages that are identified during the reconciliation process.