2007 Minnesota Statutes

124D.111 LUNCH AID; FOOD SERVICE ACCOUNTING.
    Subdivision 1. School lunch aid computation. Each school year, the state must pay
participants in the national school lunch program the amount of 12 cents for each full paid,
reduced, and free student lunch served to students.
    Subd. 2. Application. A school district, charter school, nonpublic school, or other participant
in the national school lunch program shall apply to the department for this payment on forms
provided by the department.
    Subd. 3. School food service fund. (a) The expenses described in this subdivision must
be recorded as provided in this subdivision.
(b) In each district, the expenses for a school food service program for pupils must be
attributed to a school food service fund. Under a food service program, the school food service
may prepare or serve milk, meals, or snacks in connection with school or community service
activities.
(c) Revenues and expenditures for food service activities must be recorded in the food service
fund. The costs of processing applications, accounting for meals, preparing and serving food,
providing kitchen custodial services, and other expenses involving the preparing of meals or the
kitchen section of the lunchroom may be charged to the food service fund or to the general fund of
the district. The costs of lunchroom supervision, lunchroom custodial services, lunchroom utilities,
and other administrative costs of the food service program must be charged to the general fund.
That portion of superintendent and fiscal manager costs that can be documented as
attributable to the food service program may be charged to the food service fund provided that
the school district does not employ or contract with a food service director or other individual
who manages the food service program, or food service management company. If the cost of
the superintendent or fiscal manager is charged to the food service fund, the charge must be at
a wage rate not to exceed the statewide average for food service directors as determined by
the department.
(d) Capital expenditures for the purchase of food service equipment must be made from the
general fund and not the food service fund, unless two conditions apply:
(1) the unreserved balance in the food service fund at the end of the last fiscal year is greater
than the cost of the equipment to be purchased; and
(2) the department has approved the purchase of the equipment.
(e) If the two conditions set out in paragraph (d) apply, the equipment may be purchased
from the food service fund.
(f) If a deficit in the food service fund exists at the end of a fiscal year, and the deficit is
not eliminated by revenues from food service operations in the next fiscal year, then the deficit
must be eliminated by a permanent fund transfer from the general fund at the end of that second
fiscal year. However, if a district contracts with a food service management company during the
period in which the deficit has accrued, the deficit must be eliminated by a payment from the
food service management company.
(g) Notwithstanding paragraph (f), a district may incur a deficit in the food service fund
for up to three years without making the permanent transfer if the district submits to the
commissioner by January 1 of the second fiscal year a plan for eliminating that deficit at the
end of the third fiscal year.
(h) If a surplus in the food service fund exists at the end of a fiscal year for three successive
years, a district may recode for that fiscal year the costs of lunchroom supervision, lunchroom
custodial services, lunchroom utilities, and other administrative costs of the food service program
charged to the general fund according to paragraph (c) and charge those costs to the food service
fund in a total amount not to exceed the amount of surplus in the food service fund.
History: 1977 c 447 art 6 s 6; 1979 c 334 art 6 s 22; 1981 c 358 art 6 s 26; 1983 c 314 art 6
s 17; 1Sp1985 c 12 art 6 s 11; 1987 c 398 art 6 s 11; 1989 c 209 art 1 s 12; 1991 c 265 art 8 s 5;
1992 c 499 art 8 s 6; 1Sp1995 c 3 art 16 s 13; 1998 c 397 art 7 s 75,164; art 11 s 3; 1998 c 398
art 6 s 25; 2000 c 489 art 7 s 2; 1Sp2005 c 5 art 5 s 2,3; 2006 c 282 art 6 s 1; 2007 c 146 art 5 s 5