SALEM — Superintendent William Cameron Jr. says schools can't afford to keep food service in-house and guaranteed it would be cheaper to hire an international company to feed local students.

The superintendent said he "spent several days reading the proposals and trying to weigh them," but recommended removing the food program from local management because it is running a six-figure deficit the district can't afford.

"At this point, given this mess, given the problems the district has," said Cameron at last night's School Committee meeting, "we simply can't run the risk of further deficits."

He detailed his rationale in a 19-page letter he gave to committee members at the close of the meeting.

The School Committee was supposed to vote last night on whether to privatize school lunches, but postponed the decision until its next meeting on June 16 and scheduled a 6 p.m. presentation that evening to hear both from the local group and Chartwells, the food-service vendor Cameron identified.

Cameron was responding last night to a plan crafted by union members and parents that details an overhauled school food program with broader menus, healthier choices and increased participation. That plan predicts annual revenue of more than $70,000, in addition to built-in funds for equipment repair.

The group said last night's delayed vote buys them more time to push its plan.

"Now we'll have the time to give them the full complement of the work we've done in the last two years," parent Patrice Toomey said after the meeting. "We feel very very certain about our numbers and our proposal."

Deborah Jeffers, the longtime cook at Horace Mann Laboratory School, shed tears after the meeting.

"I thought he was harsh," said Jeffers, who is vice president of the local Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees Union, which represents the cafeteria workers, among other employees. "These are not pie-in-the-sky numbers (we proposed). We backed them up, and we were very conservative."

The parents and school food workers have been meeting for more than 11/2 years to collaborate on improvements to the school food program, and they conducted a survey of parents and students last year with the help of an expert at Salem State College. The group based many of its recommendations on those findings.

"I doubt Chartwells has done anywhere near the research and work we've done," Toomey said.

"We feel very strongly," Jeffers told the committee, "that our proposal to rebuild the Salem lunch program is not only workable, but the right thing to do."

Cameron said that for the last five years, the Salem school food program has consistently lost money to the point where the deficit is nearing $650,000.

He said the proposal is in "good faith," but he can't accept it "because of what I've been through this year," he said, referring to a school budget deficit crisis that forced midyear budget cuts and layoffs, and another recent series of job cuts for the next school year.

"What I see the district going through fiscally, we have had deficits everywhere you turn."

He said if Chartwells takes over, the company absorbs its own losses if there are any.

The group opposing privatization distributed its suggestions last week to the superintendent, School Committee members and Mayor Kim Driscoll in the form of a binder divided into chapters that outline the proposed the finances, menus, staffing and management of a revamped program. It includes an executive summary, a conclusion, and various supporting materials with numbers, history and student comments.

It is titled "Proposal for Salem Public Schools Lunch Program," with the subtitle "Local Solutions for a Strong Local Economy."

School Committee members posed a few questions to the group last night, but withheld seeking answers until the June 16 meeting. Member Janet Crane noted that the proposal relies on increasing student participation, so she wants to know how the group will accomplish that. Committee Vice Chairman Brendan Walsh asked how the changes will be managed.

Salem Food Service Director Maria Barker did not attend last night's meeting.

Local option

To view the union and parents' plan, visit www.morsillomotorsports.com/SPSSchoolLunch.html.

For more information, contact Deborah Jeffers at 978-744-1752 or maidmarion1951@yahoo.com, Patrice Toomey at 978-744-5935, or Cindy Theriault at 978-744-1206 or pcterri@comcast.net.