Foodservice employees on leave after school lunch allegations

GARFIELD, N.J. — Seven Garfield School District employees are on paid leave after allegations of improperly filing applications for free and reduced school lunches in the past three years.

The New Jersey Department of Education informed the school district of the allegations in a letter addressed to Board President Richard Giacomarro on Sept. 25.

The letter was attached with a report, obtained by an Open Public Records Act request, that stated the examination covered selected National School Lunch Program Free and Reduced Priced Meals Household Applications (family applications) submitted by employees of the board as of Oct. 15 2013, back to 2010. The review also covered a subset of family applications for 2008 and 2009.

A report of examination of allegations of improprieties regarding applications for free and reduced priced meals by school district employees was conducted by the state, the letter from New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) Director of the Office of Fiscal Accountability and Compliance Robert J. Cicchino said.

The examination verified that there were seven total family applications that contained misrepresentations of income by board employees during the review period which caused those employees to obtain free or reduced lunch benefits inappropriately.

The report states that there were 21 possible family applications associated with board employees. It was verified that there were seven family applications that contained misrepresentations of income, which caused employees to improperly obtain benefits for their children as of Oct. 15, 2013.

Besides the seven, several remaining applications contained errors or misrepresentations of income by board employees based on review of payroll records, the letter said. However, after correction of the incomes as applied by the National School Lunch Income Eligibility

Guidelines criteria, each of these additional applications was found to be in compliance with the original determination for free or reduced priced meals.
The report