MANCHESTER, NH – At Monday’s Manchester Board of School Committee (BOSC) meeting, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig announced that school lunch prices will not go up for students in the upcoming 2023-’24 school year.
In a memorandum released last month, there was an expectation that there would be at least a $0.10 increase to meet USDA Paid Lunch Equity tool guidelines. Those guidelines are in place requiring school food service programs have surpluses or level funding to ensure that students receiving free or reduced-cost lunches pay a reasonable price while ensuring the financial health of food service programs without over-reliance on federal aid.
There was initially an expectation that this requirement would not be met, with a proposal from the BOSC Committee on Finance and Facilities raising costs by $0.20 for breakfast and lunch meals as well as milk cartons, placing breakfast at $1.50, milk at $0.70, elementary school lunches at $2.70 and middle and high school lunches at $2.95.
However, Craig said as of Monday, this price increase would no longer be necessary.
Craig also noted that this could change and requested the BOSC transfer $44,166 from the school district’s general fund to the School Food and Nutrition Services (SFNS) fund, the amount that would have been raised by the $0.20 price increase, with the transfer making the price increase unnecessary if the SFNS situation changes. She felt this request was necessary, stating that it was inappropriate to raise school lunch prices on families at this time.
Ward 4 BOSC Member Leslie Want asked if keeping the prices the same for the upcoming year would result in larger increases in future school years. Manchester School District Chief Financial Officer Karen DeFrancis said that several options were being examined to prevent such a large increase in future years.
The last time school lunch prices were increased in Manchester was in September 2019, where prices were increased by $0.10.