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District 202 approves lunch price increases

The District 202 Board of Education approved lunch-related items at last night’s meeting, including a quarter increase to the price of lunches in all three schools.

Superintendent Steve Wilder told the board that the school lunches will be going up at the elementary from $2.05 to $2.30, at the junior high from $2.10 to $2.35, and at the high school from $2.15 to $2.40.

Wilder called the item a “pebble in his shoe” for the last few years.

“Several years ago the USDA passed some rules that local school lunch costs, if you participate in the National School Lunch Program, need to be at the same level that the reimbursement is – per meal – from the USDA,” said Wilder. “Ours has been below that. So to their credit, they’ve allowed us to increase that gradually.”

He added that instead of doing a gradual increase over each year, the district chose to do chunk increases every two or three years.

Wilder indicated that another price increase would be up in a year or two, and it would be the final increase to keep it inline with the reimbursable lunch cost.

The board approved the increase, along with the milk and bread bids from Prairie Farms and Aunt Millie’s respectively.

As far as the forthcoming state budget, Superintendent Wilder informed the board that there was no update in regard to hearing anything of a deal being made.

He indicated there was talk behind closed doors regarding, and that May was the month that details were hammered out.

“There may be a point in time at which I ask to email or call our representatives in Senator Chuck Weaver and Representative Dan Swanson, and give them your thoughts on the matter. But for right now it appears that there is work going on behind the scenes it’s just a slow process.”

Wilder added that he would have an update on the school’s budget in June as revenues came in.

The board did approve the district’s health insurance for the coming year.

Wilder informed the board that the district would be seeing an increase of 8% , which he said was on the low-end of average.

To put that in real dollars, Wilder said that it would be an increase in teacher premiums from $590 to $637 .

Also approved were raises for non-certified and administrative staff.

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