California orders schools to spend more on lunch

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — At long last, some school food service departments in California are going shopping, under orders from the California Department of Education to spend millions of dollars in federal and state school lunch funds that districts have failed for years to use for student meals, according to the department.

Sixty-eight school food service departments have been ordered to spend more money on food services, including a $13 million spending plan at Santa Ana Unified School District, a series of spending plans totaling $9 million at Stockton Unified School District and a $4.4 million spending plan at Escondido Union School District, according to the department and the districts. Under the plans, the districts have bought ovens and salad bar carts, hired dietitians and accountants and purchased fresh fruit and higher quality cuts of meat.

The spending plans were prompted by renewed financial oversight following last year’s report from the state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, which stated that over a period of roughly a decade, the California Department of Education had ordered eight school districts to repay nearly $170 million to the school meals program. The report, titled “Food Fight: Small team of state examiners no match for schools that divert student meal funds,” said some of the districts were supplementing their tight budgets by diverting federal and state meal reimbursements, while others were building excess food service cash reserves. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the National School Lunch Program, stipulates that cash reserves may not exceed three months of operating expenses.

Now the California Department of Education is in the midst of a statewide effort to put dozens of non-compliant districts on spending plans and to train school administrators, business officers and food service staff about the regulatory requirements. The department said the scope of the misuse of