Culver School Board Reviews 2016 Summer Food Service Program

summerfoodservicesThe Culver Community Schools Corporation served 3,710 lunches and 1,836 breakfasts over the summer, as part of the Summer Food Service Program. It’s sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and aims to give meals to children 18 and younger, as well as certain adults with disabilities.

Those figures are a drop of over 2,000 lunches and 500 breakfasts from last year’s numbers. Food Services Director Carin Clifton told the Culver School Board last week she attributes the decline to the lack of high school summer school and elementary Jump Start. “Also, last year we started as soon as school was out, the next Monday,” she added. “We pretty much went the whole time until school started, and I found that my staff – because I have six of my staff working – that they would sort of burn out in the few months into school. So we decided this year, we would take a week ahead of time and let them have a week off.”

Clifton said that the federal grant, combined with income from sale of adult lunches, created a surplus of more than $2,000 over expenses. She says that extra money is earmarked for equipment and supplies used for the program. Additionally, the corporation is also allowed to run the Food Service program during its two-week spring break.

In other business, the Culver School Board voted to return some money to the corporation’s Rainy Day Fund. Corporation Treasurer Casey Howard said the school board voted last December to use Rainy Day funds to make a bond payment for the Pension Debt Service Fund. “At the time, that particular fund did not have the funds to make that payment in whole, so I asked for a resolution, which you approved, to make that payment out of the Rainy Day Fund,” she reminded board members. “Well since then, obviously we’ve had two tax distributions, December ’15, June of ’16. Now there’s ample amount of money that can now repay the Rainy Day for that payment that was made, as well as pay the rest of the payments that will be due for 2016.”

The school board approved the resolution to reverse last year’s payment from the Rainy Day Fund, unanimously.