A Virtual District in the Santa Clarita Valley

Ann Friedland

E Pluribus Unum

Twenty years ago last June, Pavel Matustik had just made his way across the Mexican border into California. He was a defector—from the former Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia—and had made his escape during a carefully-planned trip to Cuba. Matustik knew no English and certainly had never heard of the U.S. National School Lunch Program.

But within a decade, he's worked his way up through the industry to become Chief Administrative Officer of California's Santa Clarita Valley School Food Service Agency. Today, he presides over what has grown into a unique five-district school foodservice joint venture and has just established an equally innovative commodity processing co-op that is leveraging the commodity re-processing of 159 school districts across the state (see "Commodity Smarts" sidebar).

From Protestor to Director
Four days after entering the U.S., Matustik landed a job as banquet cook-helper at a Sheraton hotel in South Pasadena (he still expresses thanks to the chef "for his willingness to take a chance on me.")

In some ways, it was an opportunity the Communists had inadvertently prepared him for. Long before fleeing Czechoslovakia he'd been labeled a "troublemaker" for some earlier student protest activities; and when that was used to bar him from pursuing an advanced college degree in the Communistcontrolleduniversity system, he'd signed up to take hotel/restaurant management courses as a way of preparing to make a living.

He's been off and running in the field ever since. After a short time with the hotel, Matustik joined the school foodservice community with a job as production supervisor working for Rick DeBurgh at the Los Angeles Unified School District. (DeBurgh, former director at Los Angeles and Glendale Unified School districts, is now president of DJ Co Ops.) Over the years he held positions in several other Southern California districts, including the director's position in Santa Monica, before assuming his present role in Santa Clarita Valley in 1993.

"Even the best-run foodservice departments are still part of the school district, and are at the bottom of the pecking order. Here, our core business is school lunch, not education."

"I liked Santa Monica very much," he says. "It's a beautiful community, and some of the schools look right out to the beach.

"But the position at Santa Clarita's JPA (the 'Joint Power Authority' that combines foodservice operations for the districts there) promised a real challenge as well as better pay. Most of my friends said, 'you're nuts, it's not worth it,' but I wanted to give it a try."

A white knight for the white elephant
Matustik's friends' worries were real enough: with the agency bleeding $200,000 annually, Matustik was stepping in to manage a oneofa-kind, four-year-old organization that even its creators were deeming a "white elephant."

It had been established as a joint powers agreement among three small, neighboring school districts four years earlier, in 1989.

Unable to make their foodservice operations break even independently, the districts had sought to achieve economies of scale by creating a central agency to serve them all, with capital investments initially funded by a bond issue. It was a novel approach and had required the passage of new state legislation to permit the change.

"The agency operates as if it were one larger district—but a district that exists for foodservice production and operations only," says Matustik. "To the state, the JPA appears as a district without students and without teachers; it exists only for the administration of foodservices, mostly in the elementary and middle schools. Other activities in the districts are still managed independently by individual districts. It is a pretty unusual approach."

The agency was supposed to be self-sustaining, dependent on its own cash flow to succeed and not eligible for additional reimbursement from member districts. But, it hadn't been able to meet that goal, despite the districts' major investments in a new central cook-chill and production facility.

That presented some immediate problems when Matustik assumed his new responsibilities.

"In a typical school district, if money runs low between the end of school in June and the beginning in September, general funds within the district can be used to cover foodservice employees' pay and vendor invoices," Matustik explains. But as an independent entity, completely separate from the school district, this foodservice agency had no such recourse.

"I ended up borrowing money to pay salaries and bills during the gap," Matustik says. "But even though the agency continued to lose money my first year, it wasn't as much as before, and we began making immediate progress."

Two Years of Change
That progress continued, thanks to changes Matustik began to implement. "I'd committed to turning the agency around in three years, so the first thing I did was to build my management team," he says. "Then we changed about 80 percent of the way things had been done." Among them:

Within two years, the agency was making money and participation had increased by seven percent. Since then, another two neighboring districts turned their foodservices over to the Santa Clarita agency, which has grown from serving 14 schools to 40. Matustik's original budget—$1.3 million annually— mushroomed to $7.3 million, and he has been able to accelerate by several years the plan for reimbursing the districts' original $5 million investment to build the central kitchen.

Unique Position
Santa Clarita's organization as a joint powers agreement is believed to be the only one of its kind in the country, and it has come with some distinct advantages. For example, most school foodservice directors can only fantasize about not having to fight for attention at school board meetings.

"Even the best-run foodservice departments are still part of the school district, and are at the bottom of the pecking order," says Matustik. "Here, our core business is providing school lunch. We have no competing interests; we've all got the same goals."

Each member district has a representative on the agency's board of directors ( usually business managers), and Matustik reports to them. "There are five people on the board who agree on policy, and it is my job to implement that policy," he explains. "Few political issues come up at our board meetings. We basically take the position of 'let's feed kids efficiently, provide as many meal choices as we can, and ensure that our financial picture remains healthy.' Our monthly meetings are like business meetings, not at all like school board meetings."

Beyond the multiple duties inherent in a director's job, as CAO, Matustik also must handle such general business matters as negotiating with unions and dealing with workman's compensation claims and liability insurance.

"We often learn information at the last minute. But I can live with that. We do work on trying to get the districts to see us as part of their team, not just as 'that company."

For all the freedoms the joint powers agreement provides, it comes with some downsides as well, Matustik acknowledges. Five different districts with their own particular calendars (from year 'round schedules to staggered start dates) pose an ongoing challenge. And since the agency is not bureaucratically part of any district, "we're out of the loop regarding what's going on sometimes," he says.

"We often learn about new issues in the member districts at the last minute. That's something we are always working on—our goal is to get the districts to see us as part of their team, not just as 'the company that runs our foodservice programs.'"

Working With the Schools
To that end, Matustik initiated an eightmember principals' advisory committee that meets quarterly to enhance the flow of information. "The members take back suggestions and information to the principals, who tend to more readily accept it from them than from my memos," he notes. "It's been a very successful way to communicate."

Ten-minute presentations conducted in every classroom help acquaint students with the foodservice offerings and staff; and school garden projects let students plant and harvest some of the vegetables they eat at lunch.

Through an annual Kids' Cooking Campaign, six different fourth-grade classes (about 180 students in all) descend upon the central kitchen in groups to create menus, prepare a full meal and send out invitations for family, teachers and administrators to join them in tasting the results of their culinary adventures. (A local mayor and congressman are typically among the guests.)

"This is always a real eye-opener for parents, and we win them over with this program; they appreciate the opportunity it presents to their kids," Matustik says.

Spending the past two decades in school foodservice has been eye-opening for Matustik as well.

"Being around kids is fun; it's great to see them enjoying food," he says. "I felt it was important for me to give back to society, to do something for my new country. And being able to feed kids is very satisfying."