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Resource | Policy Memos Initial Site Visits in the Summer Food Service Program

This guidance memo addresses sponsors’ monitoring requirements of its sites and food service operations in the SFSP. This guidance applies to sponsors’ management responsibilities of conducting initial site visits and full reviews of food service, including visits of non-congregate rural meal sites.

SFSP 10-2023
05/30/2023
Resource | Research | Assessing/Improving Operations Farm to School Census and Comprehensive Review

The Farm to School Census and Comprehensive Review includes the 2019 Farm to School Census; a descriptive review of the USDA Farm to School grant program; a review of published research on farm to school since 2010; and a set of interviews with school food distributors. 

07/15/2021
Resource | Policy Memos | FNS-GD-2019-0063 Updated Local Agency Procurement Review Tool for School Food Authorities for SY 2019-2020

This memorandum provides information on the updated template Local Agency Procurement Review Tool for state agencies to use, modify or develop in SY 2019-2020.

SP33-2019
08/19/2019
Resource | Policy Memos | FNS-GD-2019-0061 Buy American and the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018

This memorandum addresses information in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 regarding the Buy American requirements in the national school meal programs.

SP32-2019
08/15/2019
Resource | Notices Comment Request - Study of School Food Authority Procurement Practices

This collection is a new information collection for the Study of School Food Authority Procurement Practices.

08/20/2018
Resource | Policy Memos | FNS-GD-2018-0003 Market Basket Analysis when Procuring Program Goods and Modifying Contracted-For Product Lists

This memorandum provides guidance to state distributing agencies and recipient agencies on the use of market basket analysis in procuring processed end products for USDA Foods in Schools and commercial goods for the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food Program. 

FD-144, SP04 SFSP01 CACFP04-2018
01/18/2018
Resource | Notices Comment Request - Evaluation of the Direct Certification With Medicaid for Free and Reduced-Price (DCM-F/RP) Meals Demonstrations

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice invites the general public and other public agencies to comment on this proposed information collection. This is a new collection for the Evaluation of the Direct Certification with Medicaid for Free and Reduced-Price Meals Demonstrations.

02/24/2017
Resource | Research | Assessing/Improving Operations Second Access, Participation, Eligibility, and Certification Study (APEC II): Estimating and Validating Statistical Models for Updating Estimates of Improper Payments in NSLP and SBP

Statistical models were designed to estimate national improper payments due to certification error on an annual basis using district-level data. This enables FNS to update its estimates of national improper payment rates for the NSLP and SBP in future years without having to conduct full rounds of primary data collection.

11/29/2016
Resource | Policy Memos | FNS-GD-2016-0075 Q&A: Purchasing Goods and Services Using Cooperative Agreements, Agents, and Third-Party Services

This memorandum provides general guidance on the various procurement groups FNS has identified, how to use each group in a way that complies with federal procurement standards, and supersedes SP 35-2012, Procuring Services of Purchasing Cooperatives, Group Purchasing Organizations, Group Buying Organizations, etc., dated June 12, 2012.

SP05 CACFP03 SFSP02-2017
10/19/2016
Resource | Research | Assessing/Improving Operations Approaches to Measuring Erroneous Payments in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program At The State Level

The second Access, Participation, Eligibility and Certification Study (APEC II) included a follow-on report that provided statistically-derived state-level estimates of school meals erroneous payments. However, while APEC II provided a rough indicator of relative risk for groups of states (e.g., higher than average, about average, lower than average), it was not a state-representative direct measure, and creating actual annual measures of such erroneous payments at the state level using APEC methodology is cost-prohibitive. This report explores alternative approaches to developing measurement-based state-specific estimates that are responsive to year-to-year changes in the actual underlying rate in each state. It also provides cost and burden estimates for the implementation of each of these methods.

08/29/2016
Page updated: October 14, 2021