Cost of food driving lunch prices up

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on October 10, 2008

In response to rising food prices, lunch prices are going up and there will be no more free breakfast for students in the Amherst schools, the district's business manager said.

The Regional School Committee voted unanimously, Tuesday, to raise lunch prices by 25 cents to $2.50 for students and $3.25 for adults. The reduced fee for income-eligible students is 40 cents.

Breakfast, which the district had offered to all students for free beginning two years ago, now will cost $1 in the high- and middle schools and 50 cents in the elementary schools.

The reduced fee for breakfast for income-eligible students will be 30 cents.

The increases, which likely will take effect Nov. 1, are expected to offset a projected $99,000 shortfall in the food services budget this year.

"After facing unbudgeted deficits in the $100,000 range in the Food Service Program over the past two years, the district needs to continue to adopt strategies to move the program to self sufficiency," Robert Detweiler, finance manager, wrote in a memorandum to the School Committee.

The total annual food services budget for the Amherst, Amherst-Pelham regional and Pelham school districts is about $1 million, Detweiler said.

Detweiler said the cost of staples, such as cheese, bread and milk jumped 17 percent in 2007.

Some 75 percent of school districts were expected to raise lunch prices this fall, The Boston Globe reported in July.

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.