BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 292 (Santiago) - Pupil nutrition: free or reduced-price
meals: adequate time to eat.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: June 2, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 7 - 2 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: August 17, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill requires school districts to ensure that
each of their schools provide students adequate time to eat
after being served a meal, and requires schools that do not
provide students with adequate time to eat to develop a plan to
increase students' time to eat lunch.
Fiscal
Impact:
Likely mandate: Potentially significant reimbursable mandate
costs related to monitoring and compliance for school
districts to ensure schools provide adequate time to eat
lunch. (Proposition 98)
Potential mandate: Potential significant additional
reimbursable mandate costs depending upon the Commission on
State Mandate's (Commission) interpretation of whether
developing and implementing a plan constitutes a mandate.
Costs would be related to activities such as purchasing
AB 292 (Santiago) Page 1 of
?
equipment, making additional points of service, hiring
additional staff, and making changes to the school schedule.
(Proposition 98)
Potential offsetting funds: Potential ability to use federal
nutrition funds to mitigate costs of the new mandate.
However, this could come at the cost of other activities that
would have been supported by these funds. (Federal funds)
Administration: The California Department of Education (CDE)
anticipates minor and absorbable costs related to issuing
guidance and providing technical assistance on the new
requirement.
Background: Current law requires each school district or county
superintendent of schools serving kindergarten or any of grades
1 to 12, to provide for each needy student one nutritionally
adequate free or reduced-price meal during each school day.
(Education Code § 49550)
The CDE issued guidance to schools in January 2013, recommending
that each student has at least 10 minutes for breakfast and at
least 20 minutes for lunch after being served. This guidance
cites research indicating that inadequate time to eat
discourages students from buying and eating complete lunches.
The guidance further states that waiting in line is the most
commonly reported factor contributing to student dissatisfaction
with lunches.
Proposed Law:
This bill requires school districts to ensure that each school
within their jurisdiction makes adequate time to eat available
to its students. This bill provides that adequate time to eat
is 20 minutes after being served. This bill requires that, upon
annual review of its bell schedule, if a school determines that
it is currently not providing students with adequate time to
eat, the school, in consultation with the school district, must
develop a plan to implement ways to increase students' time to
eat lunch.
This bill authorizes the appropriate school food authority to
use federally or state-regulated nonprofit school food service
cafeteria accounts to defray any costs related to providing
adequate time for students to eat after being served that is
AB 292 (Santiago) Page 2 of
?
allowable under federal and state law.
Related
Legislation: AB 2449 (Bocanegra, 2014) was nearly identical to
this bill and failed passage in this Committee.
Staff
Comments: This bill imposes a new oversight activity for school
districts to ensure adequate time is provided to students to
eat. This is likely to be determined a reimbursable state
mandate by the Commission. The bill specifies that the CDE
defines "adequate" as 20 minutes after being served however it
is unclear whether this will be the standard school districts
will be held to as it is not an explicit requirement. It is
possible that school districts could be reimbursed for
activities such as issuing guidelines and monitoring and
evaluating schools' compliance. Even if school districts that
currently meet a standard of adequacy, they could claim
reimbursement for these activities. School districts can also
aggregate their schools' claims; if even half of the
approximately 1,000 school districts claim the $1,000 minimum
claim threshold, costs would be $500,000.
This bill also requires a school, if it determines that it is
currently not providing students with adequate time to eat, to
consult with its school district to identify and develop a plan
to increase students' time to eat lunch. Schools must make this
determination upon annual review of their bell schedules. Some
schools may determine that they are providing students adequate
time to eat, regardless of the recommended 20 minute standard.
For those that determine that they are not providing adequate
time, presumably using their own criteria, they will be required
to develop a plan to increase time provided; by how much is
unclear. The Commission could determine that development of the
plan and its implementation are reimbursable. On the other
hand, the Commission could determine that allowing students
adequate time to eat the meals that schools are already required
to serve to them is not a higher level of service, and not
reimbursable.
Depending upon the Commission's determination, additional
reimbursable activities could include: (1) staff time involved
AB 292 (Santiago) Page 3 of
?
in making the determination as to whether adequate time was
provided to eat, including annual review of the schools' bell
schedules; (2) staff time of both the school and school district
working in consultation to develop the plan; (3) implementation
costs such as purchasing additional equipment, increasing
staffing, implementing changes in the school's schedules, or,
extending the school day. If these activities are determined to
be reimbursable, statewide costs could be very substantial.
Just one additional cafeteria worker for 100 schools could run
costs in the millions.
The Commission may determine that the availability of federal
cafeteria funds mitigates some of the mandate costs in this
bill. However, this places pressure on cafeteria funds to be
used for activities to increase time provided to eat over other
allowable purposes.
-- END --