by Krystal Paco

Guam - Two weeks into the new school year and your child may be asking more for lunch money. As such, the days of $0.75 lunches are long over - today's students are paying $2.50 per tray.

Department of Education deputy superintendent of finance and administrative services Taling Taitano says compared to last year's $8 million contract, food services provider Sodexo is asking for a 40% increase because they're paying more for the food than they're actually being reimbursed. "We actually went back and took a look at the cost of the meals they were producing and in some cases noted that the price for the commodities that they purchased was actually more than the price they were receiving," she said.

And Sodexo is charging DOE $4.50 per plate, says doe federal programs administrator Ike Santos. For a student who's eligible for free or reduced lunch, federal reimbursements only cover a dollar of the difference leaving local tax dollars to cover the dollar remainder. That's a lot of money when you consider that more than 80% of the island's elementary school students meet that eligibility. That's not even including middle and high school students.

Santos says what's hurting DOE hardest is that Guam is considered part of the contiguous states, unlike Hawaii and Alaska, who receive much higher reimbursement rates. "What that means is that the milk that we get on island although it's costing us $0.47 for that particular milk; it costs Wisconsin $0.07, so the difference is a $0.40 difference," he said. "And although we get our milk through defense logistics which is basically the commissary and what our men and women in uniform would eat or drink it still costly to package and bring it over to Guam."

Santos says DOE is working to conduct a study with the University of Guam to determine the true cost per meal for not only public schools, but all entities that receive federal funding from the child nutrition program, including DoDEA, the Department of Youth Affairs, and all private schools and child care centers. Santos says the study's findings are steps in the right direction towards convincing the federal government to provide more in reimbursement dollars.