ALEXANDER LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

7 C.F.R. § 245.6(a) provides that each local educational agency participating in the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Special Milk Program, or a commodity only school, shall provide meal benefit forms for use by families in making application for free or reduced-price meals or free milk for their children. Furthermore, 7 C.F.R. § 245.6(c)(4) provides the local educational agency must use the income information provided by the household on the application to calculate the household’s total current income. When a household submits an application containing complete documentation and the household’s total current income is at or below the eligibility limits specified in the Income Eligibility Guidelines as defined in § 245.2, the children in that household must be approved for free or reduced-price benefits, as applicable. Of the applications tested for fiscal year 2023, 31.8% were not signed by the food service director to indicate review of application and agreement with the benefit determination. Additionally, the benefits on 4.5% of the applications were incorrectly calculated based on the household’s total current income and household size and the income eligibility limits. Failure to properly review applications and calculate household income and household size resulted in incorrect eligibility determinations. The District should review procedures for determining eligibility and implement additional control practices which will ensure eligibility is properly and accurately determined based on applicable criteria and updated in the system if the determination changes.

Our current DFN will attend both the Food Service Management Company (FSMC) annual training and ODEW’s provided state training on school meal applications.  All paper application will be organized, filed, and stored in the Food Service office/storage for review and auditing needs. Online/electronical applications will be held on the SFA server and detailed reports will be printed, organized, and stored with manual versions.

7 C.F.R. § 245.6a(c)(1) states the local educational agency must verify the eligibility of children in a sample of household applications approved for free and reduced-price meal benefits for that school year. 7 C.F.R. § 245.6a(e-f) outline the procedures to be performed by the local educational agency during the verification process, as well as the required changes to be made to the eligibility determinations, as based on the results of the verification procedures. 7 C.F.R. § 245.6a(h) states, in part, by February 15, each local educational agency must report information related to its annual statutorily required verification activity. Local educational agencies shall retain copies of the information reported under this section and all supporting documents for a minimum of three years. All verified applications must be readily retrievable on an individual school basis and include all documents submitted by the household for the purpose of confirming eligibility. The District submitted the School Food Authority (SFA) Verification Collection Report for the 2022-2023 school year on November 4, 2022 indicating verification of 10 applications was completed. However, the District was unable to provide documentation to support the required verification procedures were performed during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023 to determine if those required verification applications were correct in their benefit type. The District should establish and implement procedures to verify that the required verification is performed and all necessary documentation is properly maintained.

All paper application will be organized, filed, and stored in the Food Service office/storage for review and auditing needs.