Other area school districts do not generally supplement their food operations from the general fund, though some have done so temporarily to navigate the sharp decrease in funding due to schools closing during COVID-19. "The reality is, they are breaking their necks to even produce that level of food, and they cannot do it on the budget we’re providing them." "To continue to say we’re going to self-sustain this budget line and then say on the record that the food is sub-par," School Board Vice President Beatriz LeBron said. It will transfer about $1.5 million from the general fund balance and also take $1 million from the food service fund balance increased revenue from greater participation is expected to make up the difference. The school board, though, decided to break the general guideline of a self-funding food service program. In Rochester, where both overall enrollment and school meal participation are falling, that formula originally would have led to a decrease in the food budget from 2021-22 to 2022-23. Food services operations in public schools are supposed to be cost-neutral: a district spends as much as it earns on meal sales and federal reimbursement, with no funding infusion from the general budget.
In the past, such a price tag has been an obstacle.
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The upgrades are expected to cost about $1.7 million more in food costs plus $1.3 million to hire another 30 employees needed to run the kitchens. Bowls of often-ignored apples and oranges will be replaced by plums and fresh-cut pineapple and melon. High schools will move toward fast casual meals like made-to-order wraps, a loaded baked potato bar and rice and pasta bowls. On the menu starting in September: new crowd-tested offerings including barbecue smoked turkey sandwiches, pasta with alfredo sauce and beef chili, plus additional plant-based items for vegetarian students and a salad bar in almost every school. Wilson Magnet High School juniors Jahmere Libbett, right, and Ke'Sean Chung sit together and talk with friends over their lunch of pizza during their lunch period in the school cafeteria in Rochester Wednesday, June 8, 2022. "There’s so much stuff wrapped up in this food. "That’s the main thing these students have asked for in their rallies and walkouts and everything, is better food," board member Ricardo Adams said. Now, after suffering through well publicized pandemic-era struggles, the district is adding $3 million to its food service program and promising to revamp its lunch offerings in schools across the district. That consensus was confirmed last month by the district's acting chief financial officer, Vern Connors, who said at a board meeting: "I think everybody here knows the product we’re delivering, the quality of the food, is substandard."
"And by eighth period my stomach be growling, just begging for help." "Do you know how much money this school makes off me?" he said. Jahmere Libbett agreed and said he spends at least three dollars a day at the vending machine.
"The chili's all right, but only if you're starving. "The pizza looks nasty, like it's been sitting there a while," Casmier Sawyer said. Cafeteria worker Alex Espada, left, serves slices from a trio of pizza options to students during their lunch period at Wilson Magnet High School in Rochester Wednesday, June 8, 2022.Īnd yet whenever students are asked their top concerns, the answer has been consistent: the lunch is bad.