CARY, NC — The rising costs of food, packaging, supplies and employee benefits is prompting the Wake County Public School System to propose an increase in school lunch prices for a quarter next year.
The board has raised meal prices two years in a row already, citing similar financial challenges.
The proposal would raise breakfast and lunch prices at all schools by $0.25. For a 177-day school year, that would cost a family $44.25 more for lunch in a school year, per child. It would cost $88.50 per child if the family buys both breakfast and lunch.
Prices would raise from $3.25 to $3.50 and from $1.50 to $1.75 for elementary school lunch and breakfast, respectively. They would rise from $3.50 to $3.75 and from $1.75 to $2.00 for middle and high school lunches and breakfasts, respectively.
The expected revenue from raising both breakfast and lunch prices is $1.1 million, $870,000 of which would come from the lunch price hike.
Currently, the North Carolina General Assembly covers the reduced price for students who qualify for reduced-price meals, meaning those children receive their meals for free.
The school board will hear the proposal during an afternoon work session Tuesday but won’t take the proposal up for a vote Tuesday.
School nutrition services departments are financed separately form other school operations; they are funded entirely by their own revenues and can’t run a deficit. While some grants can help them, generally other funds cannot be transferred into them to help them break even.
