“To bridge this gap, I think it would be really important to many families in Macon County,” said School Board Member Hillary Wilkes.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reimburses school nutrition programs for each meal provided to students — both paid and free meals. For the 2024-25 school year, the reimbursement rate for free students is $4.54, and $0.53 for full paid students. The USDA’s intent is for school nutrition programs to serve meals to paying students at a rate as close to the free reimbursement rate as possible.

Macon County Schools will increase the cost of school lunch to $4 for all paid students in grades K-12. This is up from the previous price of $3.75 for K-4 students and $3.85 for students in grades five through 12, which was approved by the board in June of 2022.

“This is mostly driven by increases in labor costs and food costs,” said Macon County Schools Nutrition Director David Lightner. “Our U.S. food costs are about $60,000 a week, and that does not include our other delivery companies. Our labor has gone up from $11.77 per hour to a starting rate of $16.07 an hour since I’ve been here and just to be able to continue to fund this, that’s why we’re having to look at the rate increase.” 

The school system will continue to offer Universal Free Breakfast as well as the free At Risk After School Meal Program in the 2024-25 school year. The increase in meal prices will only affect students at Franklin High School and Highlands school, because students at all other Macon County schools receive free lunch through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a non-pricing meal service option for schools in low-income areas.

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The CEP program allows schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications for free and reduced lunch. Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) or Medicaid benefits, as well as children who are certified for free meals without an application because they are homeless, migrant, enrolled in Head Start or in foster care.

Any district, group of schools in a district or individual school with 25% or more students participating in these programs qualifies for CEP.

Once a certain school qualifies for the CEP program, thereby allowing all students at the school to access free breakfast and lunch, that school remains in the program and can continue offering no cost meals for a five-year period, after which the school is reassessed.

With only two schools in the system not qualifying for the CEP program, Board Member Hillary Wilkes made a motion for the Board of Education to approach the Macon County Board of County Commissioners with a request for them to fund the discrepancy between paid meals and non-paid meals for those students at Franklin High School and Highlands School for the upcoming school year.

During its most recent budget cycle, the Jackson County Commission approved a similar — though much more expensive — request from Jackson County Public Schools to cover the cost of free breakfast and lunch for the five schools in Jackson County that do not currently qualify for the CEP program. Commissioners committed to half a million dollars for the upcoming school year in order to ensure all students in Jackson County receive free breakfast and lunch.

“Even if it’s not a struggling family, the cost of food has gone up exorbitantly,” Jackson County Superintendent Dana Ayers said in a presentation to the commission. “Even my own kid, when I pack lunch, it’s not a three-dollar meal like it used to be… so this would be a true community service opportunity for all of our families.” 

Lightner estimated that the request to the commissioners — the cost of funding free lunch for the two schools in Macon County that are not eligible for the CEP program — would be just over $150,000.

“We’ve been given the gift of nine schools being covered, and I know there’s been lots of talk about monies coming into the county, the opioid settlements, and we’ve talked about investing in mental health, and I think food insecurity as a school child from K-12 is one of the biggest components you can look at in the mental health foundation for our students,” Wilkes said. “So, I would love to talk about how we can potentially bridge the gap prior to school starting next month.”

While Jackson County just secured funding from its county commission to fund all free meals for its students, both Haywood County and Swain County are eligible for the CEP program county-wide, meaning all students at all schools in those counties have access to free meals and the nutrition departments receive full free-meal reimbursement for each meal served.

“There’s been studies for years showing that academically kids do better, there’s less behavioral problems, less absence problems, if kids are eating at school,” said Lightner.

The request to the county commission will have to be a best estimate and could be higher than expected. Lightner said that the current estimate of $152,000 is based off last year’s school lunch participation rates at Highlands School and Franklin High School, but that he expects increased participation in school lunches if all students are able to eat for free.

Board members requested that Lightner come up with a range of possible funding needs based on increased participation and current participation trends.

“I think it’s very doable to send a request for [county commissioners] to consider at their next meeting,” said Chairman Jim Breedlove.

The next Macon County Commission meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13. The agenda for the meeting has not yet been released.