Statement of the American School Food Service Association

before theCommittee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
United States Senate

March 4, 1997

Mr. Chairman, Senator Harkin, members of the Committee, I am Janet Bantly, the President of the American School Food Service Association. We appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning and would like to thank you for scheduling this hearing to coincide with our Legislative Action Conference. With me today is Mary Kate Harrison, the Chair of our Public Policy and Legislative Committee and the Director of Child Nutrition in Tampa, Florida, also Tami Cline, the ASFSA Director of Nutrition and Education - - - and a few hundred members for support. Our counsel, Marshall Matz, is with us as well.

Chairman Lugar, I would like to start by commending you personally for the leadership you have provided on child nutrition. There is tremendous support for child nutrition on this Committee. Subcommittee Chairman McConnell, Senator Harkin, Senator Leahy, and all members of the Committee, have been very supportive over the years. With all due respect to your colleagues, however, your leadership, Mr. Chairman, on the block grant issue in the 104th Congress was simply a profile in courage. You gave new meaning to the expression "Just Say No" and, in the process, saved the child nutrition programs from losing their entitlement status. Thank you very much.

As you know, the National School Lunch Act was passed over 50 years ago, "to safeguard the health and well being of the nation's children" after a large number of World War II recruits failed their physicals due to malnutrition-related problems. Today, the National School Lunch Program serves 26 million children each day in approximately 94,000 schools. Children who participate in the National School Lunch Program receive more of the essential nutrients they need for proper physical and cognitive growth than children who do not participate in the program. Over 14 million low-income children receive up to half of their daily nutrients from the School Lunch Program.

The School Breakfast Program serves 6.5 million children each day. Studies show that children who participate in the School Breakfast Program perform better on standardized tests, are on time and in school more often than children who do not participate in the School Breakfast Program. When a school initiates a breakfast program, there are fewer disciplinary problems, and it is easier for the teacher to teach the class.

We are very proud of the child nutrition programs we administer. In our opinion, the federal nutrition programs are a part of what makes the United States so special. As a country, we are saying that it is important, as a matter of national public policy, to feed our children and others who need assistance. It cannot be said too often that children are our most important national resource and without good nutrition they cannot grow and fully develop. The very best teachers cannot succeed if a child's stomach is empty.

We are very pleased by the progress we have made to implement the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, thereby making a good program even better. ASFSA has supported the Dietary Guidelines since the first edition was released in 1980. We were pleased to work with this Committee in 1994 to include a requirement in the National School Lunch Act that all schools comply with the Dietary Guidelines. Subsequent legislation was also enacted to allow schools the flexibility to use "any reasonable approach" in implementing the Dietary Guidelines. We feel this flexibility is extremely important given the disparity in resources that exists in schools throughout the country. Our Association is working with our members to raise their awareness of the Dietary Guidelines and to provide the technical assistance school foodservice professionals need to ensure their meals are nutritionally complete.

Mr. Chairman, there are several current issues we would like to bring to your attention this morning:

Nutrition Education and Training Program (NET). The 1996 Welfare Reform Act (Public Law 104-193) left the NET Program without funding for Fiscal Year 1997. NET is an essential resource in the cafeteria --- and the classroom --- that teaches school foodservice professionals how to prepare healthy meals and provides curriculum for teaching children healthy eating habits. Adequate NET funding is crucial to implementing the Dietary Guidelines.

Secretary Glickman has redirected $3.75 million to NET as a stop-gap measure to keep the program structure in place. This is an important program and we would appreciate anything you could do to help pass a $6.25 million supplemental appropriation to maintain current services for the NET Program at $10 million per year. As you know, the Clinton Administration did request a supplemental appropriation for NET.

Dietary Guidelines. The Healthy Meals for Children Act, (Public Law 104-149) allows schools to use "any reasonable approach" to implement the Dietary Guidelines. Last October (October 2, 1996), Mr. Chairman, you wrote to Secretary Glickman along with Senator Leahy, Chairman Bill Goodling and Congressman Miller regarding the implementation of this legislation. As of this date, final regulations have not been promulgated. For the law to be effective, the rule making should be completed by early summer, so schools can begin using the increased flexibility provided by H.R. 2066 in time for the 1996-97 school year. But, if the final regulations are delayed any longer, schools will not be able to use them until the 1998-99 school year.

Yogurt. USDA issued a Proposed Rule on July 5, 1996 that would allow schools to serve yogurt as a credited food item in the School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Yogurt will help us provide students with more options to choose from and will be particularly popular with some high school students. The proposed yogurt rule has the support of most, if not all, relevant public interest organizations. Approximately 1,400 comments were filed in favor of the Proposed Rule and only 50 comments opposed it. Nonetheless, the yogurt regulation has not yet been finalized. Anything this Committee can do to move the Department forward would be much appreciated.

Reauthorization. The 105th Congress is charged with reauthorizing those child nutrition programs that expire on September 30, 1998. These programs include: The Summer Food Service Program; The Commodity Distribution Program; The Nutrition Education and Training Program; State Administrative Expenses; Homeless Preschool Children's Program; The Child and Adult Care Food Program Demonstration Project; The Food Service Management Institute; and WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Woman, Infants and Children. ASFSA supports the reauthorization of these programs.

We appreciate that dollars are scarce - - - to say the least. Hopefully, however, we can continue to move forward on making these programs easier to administer and reduce the amount of paperwork. Child nutrition programs continue to be very difficult to administer and are very time consuming. Each year, we send free and reduced-price applications home to everyone enrolled in participating schools, approximately 45 million children. Approximately 15 million applications for free or reduced-price meals are received from parents, each of which must be processed. Each day we must count and identify each student at the point of service to determine the eligibility category for that particular child.

Mr. Chairman, each member of our Association takes his or her responsibility quite seriously. We want to follow the rules and administer the programs in a manner consistent with the statutes and the regulations. However, we are concerned that we are losing sight of our larger goal, which is to feed children. There are children who take food home each day to feed younger siblings. There are children who secretly take food home on Friday because they do not have any other food to eat over the weekend. And, after decades of improving child nutrition through increasing participation in the National School Lunch Program, student participation has been relatively flat over the past decade and some schools have dropped out of the program altogether.

Therefore, we would like to explore with you several concepts as we move toward reauthorization:

We must, of course, be accountable. But the current audit/error-rate system seems excessive. If a school makes an error on just one application and provides a free meal to a child who only qualifies for a reduced-price meal, that school fails its review. Frequently, the audit process seems excessive given the amount of money that is reclaimed or at risk. There should be some type of cost/benefit analysis applied to the error rate system. We would appreciate exploring with the Committee how to establish an error-rate tolerance system that is consistent with the nature of the program.

We would like to explore with the Committee whether it is possible to reduce our three-tier system - - - free, reduced-price and paid - - - to a two-tier system. There are many children of the "working poor" who cannot afford the $0.40 for a reduced-priced lunch. As a result, our lowest participation is within the reduced-price category. If welfare reform does result in moving unemployed parents into jobs, their children will be moving from the free category to the reduced-price. If, as our experience tells us, they also are not able to afford the $0.40 for lunch each day, their academic performance, cognitive growth, and physical health will suffer.

We would like to make it easier for schools to use Provision 2 of the National School Lunch Act [42 U.S.C. 11(a)(1)(C)]. Provision 2 decreases the paperwork in the program by allowing schools to collect student income information only once every 3-5 years.

We would like to delete the provision in the National School Lunch Act requiring schools to offer students the same milk varieties as they did the prior year, even if there was not significant demand for those varieties [42 U.S.C. 9(a)(2)(B)].

In closing, Mr. Chairman, it is our hope that ASFSA will work closely over the next year with this Committee and its excellent staff, as well as with the House and USDA, to help craft a child nutrition reauthorization act of 1998 that will make these programs easier and less expensive to administer.

Again, Mr. Chairman, we'd like to thank you and every member of this Committee for your dedication to child nutrition. We believe these programs are an excellent investment in our future and a wise use of federal funds. Thank you very much. We would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.