Rising gas and food costs have some Baltimore-area school systems bumping up the price of school meals.
In Carroll, the school board Tuesday increased the cost of middle- and high-school breakfasts next year from $1 to $1.50, because of the impact of higher gas prices on trucks delivering food and the cost of milk having shot up 26 percent in a year.
Superintendent Charles Ecker said he supported the increases.
“That?s a pretty substantial increase,” said Eulalia Muschik, Carroll?s supervisor of food services.
The board also approved increasing:
– Elementary breakfasts from $1 to $1.25;
– Elementary lunches from $1.75 to $2;
– Middle- and high-school lunches from $1.90 to $2.25.
With the school board?s approval, Carroll?s breakfast prices will be closer to other counties.
Howard has been forced to increase the cost of its meals for the past two years, but now breakfast in a Carroll school costs as much as it does for a breakfast in Howard.
Anne Arundel has not increased its prices in the past few years, but Harford has due to rising gas and dairy prices.
The combination of skyrocketing prices at that time has created a “kind of perfect storm,” said Gary Childress, food services supervisor of Harford schools.
Muschik said Carroll was paying each delivery truck driver an $8.50 fee for gas at the start of this school year; it now pays $14.
But the county still would not make enough revenue with the meal increases for its food service budget to break even. It will fall $225,000 short of its $7.2 million expenditures.
Officials wanted to raise the prices even more, but resisted so meals would not be too expensive for students to buy on a regular basis.
“Everyone has a budget, and everyone has to make it work,” Muschik said.
“And we have to do the same thing.”
