Expenditures Exceed Revenue, Waters Says

December’s Food Service Report

“was not as good as previous months,”

Gilmer County School Nutrition Director Linda Waters says. Giving her report before the Board of Education last week, Waters said that the Nutrition and Food Service Department was over budget by $13,000 for the month of December. According to Waters, several factors contribute to the situation.

Part of the reason for this is that the cafeteria only served fourteen days in December, Waters explained, adding that two or three of those days

“weren’t very good days.”

She said that during two of three of these days, seniors left early and others went to Christmas parties. On such days, she noted, not many students participate in school lunches

Another reason she said the Nutrition Department was $13,000 over budget for December is that utilities were paid twice in December. She explained that utilities were not entered in bookkeeping November. As such, the department was required to enter the utilities twice in December, one for November and one for December. She said that December’s utility bill came to about $7000. In a recent email to FYN, Waters specified that the total monthly utilities bill they pay is $4968. She did not specify, however, why the November utilities bill was not entered in bookkeeping.

However, Waters said that she expects January to be a better month because it will be a longer school month with not as many holidays or days off and that more students will be in school.

During her report, she also said that the county had its second annual health inspection.

“Four schools scored a perfect 100,”

she said, while

“two, unfortunately scored a 97 because the health inspector found a dented can in their storage rooms, which were immediately, disposed of.”
.

In addition, Chairperson Kathy Jones asked Waters if the

“percentage was still at 76 percent.”

Here, Jones was referring to the percentage of students currently enrolled in the free and reduced meals program. Waters confirmed that the percentage of the students in the Gilmer systems who currently receive free and reduced lunches in 76 percent. The district encourages students to apply for free and reduced meals and has aggressively promoted the program.

“It does help the school nutrition budget for you to have a higher percent of free and reduced because the Government gives us more money for the free and reduced meals,”

Waters admitted at a January 10th meeting.