Employee hours cut to eliminate deficit
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
While cutting back on food costs in the East Troy School District’s lunch program almost took care of the deficit the program was facing at the beginning of the year, when all was said and done, the program still came in $15,000 in the red, district Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas told the School Board at the Aug. 10 meeting.
The district hired a consultant to look at where it could save money on the program, which had taken a huge hit after the federal guidelines for what constitutes a “healthy lunch” changed for the 2012-13 school year.
The East Troy lunch program, which had been running a surplus in previous years, suddenly found itself in the hole with higher food costs and fewer kids choosing to take part in the program.
In an effort to close the gap, which reached $92,000 for the 2013-14 school year, the district hired an outside consultant who specializes in federal school lunch programs. Her suggestions on menu changes and how the food is served to the kids in the district helped bring the 2014-15 school year lunch program budget closer to what it should be, but there was still a $15,000 shortfall that needed to be addressed for the upcoming school year.
Zwirgzdas told the board the consultant had advised that labor costs needed to be cut to be brought in line with the number meals being served and that over the years, while there were other cuts made to bring the budget in line, one thing that had not been cut was labor costs.
Zwirgzdas said it the district cut food service staff hours “across the board” to close the budget gap and bring their labor costs down to what they should be for the number of kids they serve each day.
“People aren’t happy about it,” Zwirgzdas said. “Just to let you know.”
She told the board that while everyone on staff who “wanted to come back, did,” but all the food service employees hours had been cut and there had been some grumbling about it.
Zwirgzdas said they looked at every hour and every employee as to the best way to cut labor costs and decided cutting back across the board was the best solution.
“We were highly overstaffed and we had to reduce several positions and hours across the board,” she said.
The cutbacks will save the district just a little more than $23,000 a year, which should be enough to balance the food service program budget.
