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Hot potato in the school cafeteria: more districts outsource their food services, but some raise questions about personnel relations and savings
School Administrator, Sept, 2004 by Kate Beem
As part of the district's agreement with Marriott, the company installed new equipment in the schools and offered employee training. The district agreed to pay back the company over time. The Janesville administration was satisfied overall with the services Marriott offered. "It could have been a long-term arrangement," says Doug Bunton, the district's finance director. "It just didn't work that way financially."
The arrangement cost the district more than it anticipated. Although Marriott paid service workers, union contracts stipulated employees be paid union wages, which drove up costs. The food service program operated in the red under Marriott's management, and the school board underwrote it with monies from the general fund, Bunton said.
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Because self-sufficiency had been a primary goal of the contractual arrangement, Bunton said the school board opted to revert to self-operation after four years. The district bought out its contract with Marriott, and the department has operated in the black for the last several years, even setting aside some money to replace older equipment.
Business Acumen
Certain costs related to running a food service program are fixed, and conscientious food service directors can exercise as much purchasing power as large companies by looking for the best deals, says Diane Smith, manager of food services in the Shawnee Mission School District in Overland Park, Kan. Her self-run department serves 24,500 meals daily, and she oversees 54 kitchens and 340 employees.
"It's basically running a business," she says. "It's a huge business. To me, whether you're making widgets or doing this, a lot of it is the same concept."
Like any businessperson, Smith regularly monitors her department's expenditures. She tracks how much food is prepared and how much is consumed. She checks portion sizes and looks for waste. When food service positions become vacant, she evaluates whether that position should be filled. And she constantly assesses her department's marketing and customer service techniques, looking for areas of improvement.
"In my district, I just try to run the program," Smith says. "I feel that we're there to serve the children."
RELATED ARTICLE: Competencies for food service chiefs.
"Outsourcing" is such a buzzword these days that when a school district's food service department hits troubled waters, there's often talk of hiring an outside company to take over.
But food service experts, such as Deborah Carr of the National Food Service Management Institute at the University of Mississippi, say districts should take a look at the leadership of their food operation before discontinuing a self-operated program.
Congress authorized the institute in 1989 to provide information and services to help improve school nutrition programs. To that end, research scientists at the institute are studying what works and what doesn't. Over the last decade, the institute has gathered a list of competencies essential for school nutrition directors and managers. The competencies and skills are outlined in two research reports available on the institute's website.
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