Photo: Ben Skirvin/StateImpact Indiana
The price of federally-subsidized lunches at Richland-Bean Blossom schools must go up to meet a nationwide mandate.
Lunch prices at a one local school district are set to rise by the end of next school year. The Richland Bean Blossom School Corporation will be increasing the price of federal school lunches in an effort to meet a new mandate.
The Federal Nutrition Act requires the school corporation receive $2.77 in reimbursements for every free lunch it dispenses. The district currently receives 26 cents for each paid lunch.
Superintendent Steve Kain says within two years the amount of reimbursements received from a paid meal should equal or be more than the amount from a free lunch.
“Basically the federal government figured out that for the schools with high free lunch counts, they were making money and subsidizing the paid lunches that way,” Kain says.
Kain says 34 percent of R-BB students receive free or reduced price lunches. By the end of next year prices will increase five cents per meal to $2.25 for elementary school meals and $2.40 for middle and high school meals.
