SALEM — Cafeteria workers and a group of parents believe they have cooked up an alternative to outsourcing the school lunch program, and they plan to share it with the School Committee today.
The committee is considering privatization because the food program is losing money, but lunch workers and local parents say their new plan will tweak personnel, bring back cooking from scratch and take advantage of discounted food through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"The program worked before," said Deborah Jeffers, the head cook at Horace Mann Laboratory School who has worked in Salem for 15 years.
Jeffers concedes that the rate of children buying school lunches in Salem is low, and she understands the school district is in financial trouble, but she believes the lunch program, run in-house, can be profitable.
"If they can see the light at the end of the tunnel," Jeffers said, "I don't think they'll just dump (the current program)."
She said the group spent months to "basically tear apart" the lunch program. The kitchens will move away from processed foods, broaden menus, look to farm-to-school initiatives, improve breakfast at the high school, and open profitable snack bars that sell baked potato chips, fruit and other healthy snacks, she said.
"The kids really want different options," said Jeffers, who is vice president of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees local, which represents the cafeteria workers and school janitors. "And what (revenue) is left over would pay down the debt and pay for equipment repair and other expenses."
Superintendent William Cameron Jr. said the subcommittee reviewing proposals from private food service companies has recommended a vendor, and his office has entered into discussions with the union. He said the School Committee must decide at its next meeting, on June 2, in order to have the matter resolved before the start of the next fiscal year, which is just over a month away.
"There is still no commitment from the School Committee to privatize," he said.
Outsourcing school food service would save the city about $200,000 in lunch workers' benefits, said School Business Manager John Danizio. The present school lunch program is running a deficit of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"Those types of programs are supposed to be self-sustaining," Danizio said. "The labor costs and prices of everything are going up.
"If you're serving less, selling less, and still buying the same and have the same amount of personnel," something is amiss, he said.
Under privatization, Danizio said, all the revenue from the meals still goes to the Salem schools and the district pays a management fee to the food-service company. It's up to the company to try to scare up extra business by offering many menu options, he said.
Of the 40 or so cafeteria workers, 16 receive fringe benefits, Danizio said. To qualify as full-time and receive benefits, an employee must work at least 20 hours, according to Jeffers, but the private company's full-time minimum is 30 hours, she said.
"This is a whole group of women who are being affected," Jeffers said. "A lot of them are single moms, or are the benefit holders for their house."
Jeffers praised the support from parents, including Patrice Toomey, Patti Morsillo and Cindy Theriault, who have spent months researching and visiting lunch programs in other communities, exploring grants and free programs like Project Bread, and looking at options to help make the food program healthier, both nutritionally and financially.
"The parents are the key," Jeffers said. "They are amazing people — and it says a lot about the people in Salem."
Current approximate hourly wages
High school cook $18.56
Lower-school cook $17.25
Helper $15.15
Source: Salem schools business office
