Harford County school officials are unsure what will happen to some of their funding now that soft drink vendors are voluntarily withdrawing sugary sodas from schools.
In Harford County, each school strikes a deal with soda vendors that puts profits from vending machine sales into “discretionary” funds, said schools spokesman Don Morrison. That money is then used to pay for school events, class trips, student groups or other minor expenses not funded directly by the school system, he said.
“For example, we recently had a student group that went down to Atlanta for a robotics competition; that was paid for with those kinds of funds,” Morrison said.
The fiscal fallout will depend upon how much of the schools’ funds came from the sodas, which are being withdrawn and replaced with healthier choices.
But the effect of the decision may be mitigated by the fact that soda machines in all Harford County schools are turned off during the school day, and only a portion of their inventory includes the sodas being recalled, Morrison said.
Under an agreement announced Wednesday by the William J. Clinton Foundation, the nation’s largest beverage distributors will sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milk to elementary and middle schools, said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton. Diet sodas would be sold only to high schools.
Nearly 35 million students nationwide will be affected, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation said in a news release.
The group, a collaboration between Clinton’s foundation and the American Heart Association, helped broker the deal.
Under the agreement, high schools still can purchase drinks such as diet and unsweetened ice teas, diet sodas, sports drinks, flavored water, seltzer water and low-calorie sports drinks from distributors.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
