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Decision Number
623
Book
27
Month
August
Year
2015
In RE
Partial Denial of Meal Reimbursement for Summer Food Service Program
Appellant
Diagonal Community School District
Appellee
Iowa Department of Education Bureau of Nutrition and Health Services
Full Text
Summary

Diagonal Community School District has participated in the federal Summer Food Service Program for about a dozen years. The substance of the meal provided by the District on June 5 did not meet the nutritional requirements of the SFSP. Thus, the sole question presented on appeal is whether the District may still try to take corrective action for the meals served on June 12, 19 and 26.

SFSP is a program created by the Agricultural Risk Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. ? 1766. The regulations are located at 7 CFR Part 225. Because SFSP involves public moneys, the regulations are quite strict, but not unreasonably so. 7 CFR ? 225.11(c)(4)(ii) authorizes termination of a school district from the SFSP if the district fails to maintain adequate records. Because the Diagonal CSD's records were far from adequate, the Bureau believes it was being very lenient in merely disallowing the reimbursement for the lunches served on the four Fridays in June.

The purpose of allowing a SFSP site to submit a corrective action plan is to improve program performance at the site. 7 CFR ? 225.11(a). It is not to remediate past noncompliance areas for the purpose of providing reimbursement.

In this case, there is no basis in the federal regulations to allow further corrective action by the District. The Bureau has accepted the corrective action steps taken by the District to enable the District to be reimbursed for the Friday lunches served prospectively in July and August. The Bureau was correct to not approve reimbursement for the June Friday lunches.

The decision to deny reimbursement to Diagonal Community School District for lunches served during the four Fridays in June, 2015 is AFFIRMED.