Cafeteria managers such as Friel, along with food-service directors, dietitians and business managers in area schools, are feeling the bite of changing tastes and rising costs in their efforts to offer a hearty lunch to their students.
Many school districts ended last year with sizable cafeteria deficits. Centennial's was $8,434, Colonial's was $25,000, Central Bucks' was $170,000, and Cheltenham's was $85,000. In Jenkintown, the deficit was $21,000; Lower Moreland, $71,900; Springfield, $20,000; Upper Moreland, $13,597, and Wissahickon, $200,000.
North Penn and Abington did not have deficits. The business managers of Upper Dublin and Hatboro-Horsham said their programs technically did not have deficits. Under their accounting methods, budget contributions to the cafeteria fund from the general fund cover employee fringe benefits.
Sylvia Lenz, director of finance for the Cheltenham School District, cautioned against comparing food-service finances because accounting practices vary among districts.
To raise revenue, most have increased lunch prices. Some have resorted to altering menus, bringing in outside vendors, and hiring consultants to turn lunch programs that continue to lose money into break-even ventures.
"It's true across the nation. Last year, almost everyone saw some losses," said Norma Wagner, president of the Pennsylvania Food Service Association and director of nutrition for the Delaware County Intermediate Unit.
The primary culprit, said Wagner, has been the cuts in federally donated foods - especially cheese - that school districts had become accustomed to getting in bulk.
"Suddenly, $3 billion worth of food across the nation that we had been used to receiving, we had to go out and buy," Wagner said. "And there's an awful lot of cheese used in school lunches."
