HARRISBURG, Pa. — Paying Central Dauphin School District's food service contractor a fixed amount for each cafeteria meal would lower administrative costs and improve food quality, a district resident told the school board tonight – Monday, September 12.
Barry Shutt, a regular attendee at Central Dauphin School Board meetings who has professional experience with school lunch programs, urged the school board to select a "fixed price" option when it pens a new contract to provide meals for Central Dauphin students this spring.
Central Dauphin School District is in the final year of a five-year contract with The Nutrition Group. Requests for proposals for a new contract to begin July 1 will be issued soon.
The current contract is "cost reimbursable," meaning that the district reimburses The Nutrition Group for whatever it spends.
Under a fixed price option, the contractor would get a set amount for each meal served, and the district would not have to monitor how much was being spent.
According to Shutt:
- The fixed price option would encourage the contractor to look for rebates and incentives to lower its costs, but the district would not have to audit the contractor to make sure that was taking place.
- The contractor would be motivated to prepare meals the students would like, since payment would be based on the number of meals purchased. Currently -- particularly with new rules about healthy ingredients -- the board has concerns that a lot of food is being thrown away because kids don't like it.
- Quality and portion sizes would not go down, since meals are regulated by the state and federal governments.
New York and Florida require school districts to choose a fixed-price option when outsourcing food service, Shutt said, and 50 Pennsylvania districts have fixed-price food-service contracts.