Weiser School District beefs up lunch debt policy

With outstanding school lunch debt in the neighborhood of $29,000, Weiser School District Trustees reinforced the district’s debt collection policy during this month’s, April 14, regular board meeting.

 During his monthly administrative report, Superintendent Dave Kerby told the board they would be considering an amendment to the existing policy under “action items” on the evening’s agenda.

 Kerby said a few families who do owe may actually qualify for free and reduced lunch if they would complete the required information form.

 “Many don’t land in that (financial) category,” he said. “So, they could pay based on the information we have, but they just haven’t. This is from just simply people sending their kids to school and not paying their bill.”

 Prior to the board’s taking action, Kerby said he has had numerous discussions with the Food Services Department about the district’s policy enforcement, how to be kind to people, but at the same time have them pay their students’ lunch bills. 

 He said the district’s policy has been a little weak, disallowing students with lunch debt to buy an extra carton of milk.

 “Then, we had the possibility of turning them over to a collection agency,” Kerby said. 

 He said he would look into it further, but doesn’t believe the individual debt amounts are in a range collection agencies are likely to take on.

 “That is in our policy and I want to take it out if it isn’t an option,” Kerby said. “Another option Fruitland has in their policy is to take folks to small claims court if, in fact, they simply don’t pay but are in the threshold they are making enough money to pay.”

 He said the Food Service department would continue to ask, and remind people to pay their bills.

 “As a last resort, we could take them to small claims court, in which case they could potentially garnish wages to pay these bills,” Kerby said. “It’s just not right for the district to pay (absorb) the bill for kids to eat when parents have the ability to pay. If they don’t have the ability to pay, they just need to please fill out the paperwork so they get funding and it’s free.

 “Our food service gals are notifying them twice a week, and there are some other things here that aren’t necessarily policy, but protocol, such as at what point do we send this letter,” he added. “There are some that are over $800 that haven’t paid, so some of them haven’t paid for over a year. Those people, we will notify, go through the process and potentially take them to small claims court.”

 The Trustees moved to suspend the rules on a second reading before voting on the proposed change and unanimously adopted the following into the district’s lunch payment policy: “Efforts to collect payment may include use of collection agencies, small claims court, or other methods permitted by law provided benefits and potential collections outweigh the costs incurred to achieve those collections.”