Baton Rouge public school leaders on Thursday plugged a nearly $5 million hole in their student meal service budget after those in charge of the program promised they will pay it all back within four years.
It is an unusual spot for East Baton Rouge Parish’s Children Nutrition Program, which for decades has run healthy surpluses. Over the past two years, however, the program, which serves meals to some 25,000 children each day, has drifted deep into the red.
Superintendent LaMont Cole on Thursday presented the four-year repayment plan to the School Board, as it voted to pull almost $4.9 million from district financial reserves to avoid a deficit.
Under the “Four-Year Financial Recovery Plan,” the program will spend the first two years righting the ship and the second two years paying the district back an estimated $2.4 million each year.
Cole said the effort to improve is ongoing.
“I’m open to listening to anyone who has suggestions about how we can improve,” he said.
The shortfall is being blamed on a combination of underestimating spending and overestimating revenue. The program began cutting spending last fall after the financial hole came to light. That was around the time when Cole became superintendent and the Child Nutrition Program got a new director, Ellen McKnight Hill.
After several months in the red, the program entered the black starting in March.
Hill, a registered dietitian nutritionist, has spent her career working in jobs in public health, wellness and nutrition in a variety of spheres. According to her resume, this is her first foray into managing a school food service.
Cole complimented Hill for her leadership amid a “crisis.”
“You came into a situation, looked at it, began managing it very quietly and professionally and have come to a point where you have a plan, a corrective action plan that is going to address the deficits and put us back in the black," Cole said.
Former School Board member and school food service professional Emily Chatelain urged the board to investigate more deeply what is happening.
“We have a really wonderful child nutrition department and a child nutrition director who needs support,” Chatelain said. “I would urge you guys to dig into this hard and deep and see what this is and look at why this is a problem.’
Chatelain, who served on the board from September 2023 to April 2024, questioned whether there really is a deficit, noting “we’re using extremely antiquated systems to manage our child nutrition program,” and that the district will abandon its progress in improving school meals.
“My big concern is we’re going to cut the quality of food that we’re serving these kids,” she said. “And that’s a really big concern when we don’t even understand what the true food cost is and what the true labor cost is.”
The department’s corrective action plan, developed in July, lists eight financial “challenges” it has been facing along with potential solutions.
Here are a few:
- Excessive staffing. The number of full-time and part-time staff grew by 61 people between August 2022 and August 2024. Over the past year, after instituting a hiring freeze, the staff count has dropped to 445, a reduction of 88 people.
- Declining student enrollment and attendance. That has led to fewer meals served and, consequently, less money reimbursed by the federal school meal program. To boost meal counts, schools are restoring “breakfast in the classroom” at elementary schools as well as other efforts to boost breakfast, which has fallen off.
- High-cost menu items. In recent years, in a bid to improve the quality of meals, the program added “premium menu items” such as “chicken wings and daily fresh fruit.” Those new offerings, however, “significantly increased plate costs and reduced overall program profitability.” Instead, the district is replacing those offerings with “nutritionally equivalent options available through the USDA commodity program.”
- Too much reliance on higher-cost "single-source” vendors for food. The district has shifted to using multiple vendors, “resulting in a 32% reduction in raw food costs compared to the previous school year.”
- Incorrect salaries in the district’s antiquated finance software, which is slowly being replaced. An internal audit has been conducted and recommended changes sent to staff in human resources.
- Loss of two federal grants worth $1.32 million. The district plans to ramp up its grant writing in hopes of attracting new funds to offset those lost.
The Child Nutrition Program historically has more than paid for its operations. As recently as 2018, it ended the fiscal year with a $10.2 million surplus.
That surplus was put to use during the tumultuous days of COVID when schools were often closed. Instead, school meals were served curbside, at pickup sites and even delivered to people’s homes.
By June 2023, the program had rebuilt to a $4.8 million surplus. It didn’t last.
In 2023-24, revenue grew about 3%, but spending increased more than 22% compared with the previous fiscal year. To cover that year’s $5.7 million shortfall, the newly built-up surplus was erased, and $885,000 was transferred from district reserves.
The uptick in spending at the time was blamed largely on $3,500 in stipends paid to cafeteria workers, plus moving those same workers five steps up the salary ladder. Then Superintendent Sito Narcisse agreed to those pay increases in August 2023 after cafeteria workers joined a bus driver sick-out and forced schools to cancel classes for a day.
