Vilsack says school meal waivers won’t work, while SNA appears to soften position
May 28, 2014 | 06:25 PM
The one-year waiver from school meal requirements for schools that have lost money for six months will not work because the Agriculture Department would have a hard time figuring out whether a school district was really struggling financially, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a telephone call to reporters today.
The waiver is in the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill that the full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up Thursday at 9 a.m.
Vilsack said USDA would have to audit the books of school districts all over the country before granting the waivers, and that setting the standards for those waivers would be difficult because districts vary in how they assess indirect costs such as space and utilities to their school lunch programs.
In addition, he noted that schools vary in how they charge for the meals of middle-class children who do not qualify for free or reduced price meals.
“It just isn’t going to work,” Vilsack said.
Vilsack also said he can support the school meals amendment added to the Senate version of the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill that calls for more flexibility on the sodium and whole grains requirements.
That provision, originated by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and adjusted by Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, amounts to the flexibility that USDA has been providing schools, and is not a waiver from the overall standards required under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Vilsack added, however, that he still opposes the provisions in both bills that would require the Agriculture Department to include potatoes in the food package under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children known as WIC.
The issue, he said, is not excluding potatoes but that the WIC package is supposed to include the foods that children lack such as dark green, orange and red vegetables.
“Pediatricians know more about children’s health than politicians do,” Vilsack said. The question of the content of the WIC food package “should not be driven by an industry.”
He added that he understands that potato growers are capable of increasing production and that consumption has gone down, but he noted that Americans are “still eating 84 pounds [of potatoes] per year.”
Most of Vilsack’s call was devoted to defending the new school meals rules. He was joined by Robert Murray, the president-elect of the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who said that the rules requiring less sugar, fat and salt and more fruits and vegetables should stay in place to fight the obesity epidemic.
School food service directors, Murray said, “have done a marvelous job over the past 15 years in steadily improving nutritional standards,” have a “very difficult job,” and the problems they have experienced should not be solved “on the backs of children’s health.”
On its call to reporters today, the School Nutrition Association, which represents the school food service directors, said they are experiencing the financial problems, difficulties in supply, and difficulty in convincing children to eat some foods that led them to ask Congress to pass the waiver.
Some school food directors on the call said that USDA and the states already had information to do the school district audits.
But Helen Phillips, the Norfolk, Va., school food service director who was president of SNA when the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed, said in an interview that the difficulty in analyzing a school district’s financial position would depend on what six-month period is considered.
She said schools typically lose money on food service at the beginning of the school year, but the situation improves as the year goes on.
SNA President Leah Schmidt, a food service director in Hickman Mills, Mo., added that “SNA would be more than happy to sit down with USDA and work things out.”
During the call, seven school food service directors from around the country said they are experiencing reduced enrollments, higher costs, and resistance to the fruit and vegetable requirements and regional cultural objections from students to such items as whole-wheat biscuits in the South and whole-wheat tortillas in New Mexico.
But Wendy Weyer, director of nutrition services for the Seattle Public Schools, said that if waivers became available, she would not request one.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also participated in a call with defenders of the new standards.
DeLauro signaled that during the markup she would have objections to many of the provisions in the bill that emerged from subcommittee, including the school meals waiver, the potato provision and food safety issues.
The waiver is in the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill that the full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up Thursday at 9 a.m.
Vilsack said USDA would have to audit the books of school districts all over the country before granting the waivers, and that setting the standards for those waivers would be difficult because districts vary in how they assess indirect costs such as space and utilities to their school lunch programs.
In addition, he noted that schools vary in how they charge for the meals of middle-class children who do not qualify for free or reduced price meals.
“It just isn’t going to work,” Vilsack said.
Vilsack also said he can support the school meals amendment added to the Senate version of the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill that calls for more flexibility on the sodium and whole grains requirements.
That provision, originated by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and adjusted by Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, amounts to the flexibility that USDA has been providing schools, and is not a waiver from the overall standards required under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Vilsack added, however, that he still opposes the provisions in both bills that would require the Agriculture Department to include potatoes in the food package under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children known as WIC.
The issue, he said, is not excluding potatoes but that the WIC package is supposed to include the foods that children lack such as dark green, orange and red vegetables.
“Pediatricians know more about children’s health than politicians do,” Vilsack said. The question of the content of the WIC food package “should not be driven by an industry.”
He added that he understands that potato growers are capable of increasing production and that consumption has gone down, but he noted that Americans are “still eating 84 pounds [of potatoes] per year.”
Most of Vilsack’s call was devoted to defending the new school meals rules. He was joined by Robert Murray, the president-elect of the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who said that the rules requiring less sugar, fat and salt and more fruits and vegetables should stay in place to fight the obesity epidemic.
School food service directors, Murray said, “have done a marvelous job over the past 15 years in steadily improving nutritional standards,” have a “very difficult job,” and the problems they have experienced should not be solved “on the backs of children’s health.”
On its call to reporters today, the School Nutrition Association, which represents the school food service directors, said they are experiencing the financial problems, difficulties in supply, and difficulty in convincing children to eat some foods that led them to ask Congress to pass the waiver.
Some school food directors on the call said that USDA and the states already had information to do the school district audits.
But Helen Phillips, the Norfolk, Va., school food service director who was president of SNA when the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed, said in an interview that the difficulty in analyzing a school district’s financial position would depend on what six-month period is considered.
She said schools typically lose money on food service at the beginning of the school year, but the situation improves as the year goes on.
SNA President Leah Schmidt, a food service director in Hickman Mills, Mo., added that “SNA would be more than happy to sit down with USDA and work things out.”
During the call, seven school food service directors from around the country said they are experiencing reduced enrollments, higher costs, and resistance to the fruit and vegetable requirements and regional cultural objections from students to such items as whole-wheat biscuits in the South and whole-wheat tortillas in New Mexico.
But Wendy Weyer, director of nutrition services for the Seattle Public Schools, said that if waivers became available, she would not request one.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also participated in a call with defenders of the new standards.
DeLauro signaled that during the markup she would have objections to many of the provisions in the bill that emerged from subcommittee, including the school meals waiver, the potato provision and food safety issues.
