The purpose of this memorandum is to update prior guidance to reflect changes made to the Community Eligibility Provision due to the Final Rule, Child Nutrition Programs: Community Eligibility Provision – Increasing Options for Schools (FR 65778), effective on Oct. 26, 2023. This final rule amended CEP regulations by lowering the minimum identified student percentage to elect CEP from 40 percent to 25 percent.
This memorandum provides a reminder of the annual Community Eligibility Provision notification and publication requirements, including the changes made by the Final Rule, Child Nutrition Programs: Community Eligibility Provision – Increasing Options for Schools. This memorandum also reminds state agencies that the statutory election deadline for schools to elect CEP for school year 2024-25 is June 30, 2024.
This memorandum provides new guidance and questions and answers to address changes made by the CEP final rule. Additionally, this memorandum provides clarification on guidance related to CEP. The attached Q&As supersede SP 54-2016, Community Eligibility Provision: Guidance and Updated Q&As.
Attached is the third edition of Community Eligibility Provision: Planning and Implementation Guidance. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) meal service option that allows schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) in high poverty areas to offer meals at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications.
Recently, FNS has received a number of questions related to buying local meat, poultry, game, and eggs; this memorandum seeks to clarify the regulatory requirements related to food safety and answer specific questions related to these products with a series of questions and answers.
This final rule amends the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) regulations by lowering the minimum identified student percentage (ISP) from 40 percent to 25 percent.
This rulemaking proposes to expand access to the Community Eligibility Provision by lowering the minimum identified student percentage participation threshold from 40 percent to 25 percent, which would give states and schools greater flexibility to choose to invest non-federal funds to offer no-cost meals to all enrolled students.
The previous version of this memorandum contained incorrect references to state agencies throughout. FNS is correcting this memorandum to remove the incorrect references and so that it more clearly and accurately reflects the federal regulations. This memorandum notifies state agencies and child nutrition program operators of the changes made by OMB to the federal informal procurement method, micro-purchases and the micro-purchase threshold.
This memorandum, SP20 CACFP07 SFSP06-2019, notifies all child nutrition program state agencies and program operators of guidance the Food and Nutrition Service received from the Office of Management and Budget, OMB M-18-18, authorizing increases to the value of the micro-purchase and simplified acquisition thresholds.
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.