Taxpayers pay for free lunches

The number of economically disadvantaged children in Hernando County has risen by more than 2,000 with 12,000 children accepting free and reduced lunches in 2009.

Along with those spikes, the school district is also receiving millions more in taxpayer dollars for school lunch reimbursement and through Title 1 funds - a federal program that provides money for additional resources to help economically disadvantaged students pass the state assessment.

According to the Florida State Department of Education, funds have to be used for projects and activities that are geared toward increasing low achievement student assessment scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. That means those funds are also used for personnel salaries, afterschool programs, new technology and any indirect costs associated with helping those students.

Last year, those receiving free or reduced lunches increased by 2,208 students, or 22 percent, from 9,949 students in 2008 to 12,157 students in 2009.

Throughout the past five years, the number of students receiving free or reduced lunches has steadily increased each year by about 200 students, but 2009 has shown to be the largest increase.

Numbers for the 2009-2010 school year won't be made available until later this month.

Lisa Bacen, a bureau chief of the Title 1 office at the Florida Department of Education, said funding from Title 1 is distributed based on a mathematical formula using census data from the year 2000 and poverty numbers - which is calculated based on free or reduced lunches.

Federal money is then pooled to the state, which then allocates the money to school districts based on their free and reduced numbers.

"That money has to be used for instructional purposes geared toward improving student achievement," Bacen said. "And that means it has to go to Title 1 schools."

According to data from the state department of education, Hernando County received more than $6.4 million last year in Title 1 federal funding - an almost $2 million increase compared to 2008 when the district received $4.5 million.

The district was seeing a steady decrease in Title 1 funds initially between 2005-06 to 2007-08 school years - from $4.5 million to $3.8 million. Funding jumped back to more than $4.5 million in the 2008-09 school year - around the time free and reduced lunch numbers increased the most.

The other side of free/reduced lunches:

Helping those in need

If previous years offered parents a choice on whether to receive free or reduced lunches, Lori Drenth, director of food and nutrition, said the flailing economy has resulted in more families coming to her with no other options.

"There's definitely an urgent situation for parents now," Drenth said. "Now with the bad economy, people are out of work and need something to help them more than ever to help get them through."

This year, she said more than 5,000 people have applied for a free or reduced lunch. Out of the applicants received each year, Drenth said 3 percent are selected at random to be verified.

That means out of the more than 5,000 this year, about 160 of those applications are verified to ensure their income statements and other information are valid.

"And once people are approved to be on the program, they stay on it through the whole year even if their situation changes and they don't need to be on it," Drenth said. "But each year you have to reapply or you don't get the benefits."

Other parents qualify for the program through already being enrolled to receive food stamps or other similar programs. Parents can fill out a paper application or go to the school district Web site at www.hernandoschools.org.

Through the program, parents who meet specific income eligibility guidelines can qualify to either pay reduced lunch prices - or 30 cents for school breakfast and 40 cents for school lunch - or qualify to have their children's lunch paid for.

Elementary breakfast costs $1 and lunch $1.70 while middle and high school breakfasts cost $1.25 and lunches $2.

Each year food services is reimbursed more than the lunch's cost through the lunch program -$2.70 for each free lunch student, $2.30 for each student on reduced lunch and 27 cents for each student on paid lunch.

That equates to $4.3 million the school district was reimbursed in 2009 - a $611,428 increase from 2008. All that money goes to food services to cover expenses for food and staff. Between salaries, benefits and food costs, she said her department normally breaks even each year.

But until economic conditions improve, she doesn't expect to see the number of those qualify for the program decrease.

"Whether it's just a temporary thing or long term - there are a lot of families in survival mode now finding that they need this program to feed their kids," Drenth said. "Because in some cases these school lunches are all the food these kids get."