BEVERLY-The Fort Frye Local Board of Education voted to contract out management of its food services Tuesday after an eight-hour meeting filled with mostly opposition from those in the district.
Chartwells School Dining Services will take over management of the district's food services, which has been losing money and has a deficit of more than $70,000.
Fort Frye's cooks will remain in place under the plan and the board will approve the manager Chartwells recommends hiring.
"It always seems like there may be winners or losers but we look at this as a potential partnership," said Dennis Thomas, sales director for Chartwells.
Many of the parents and food service employees who spoke at Tuesday's meeting disagreed.
"It's very important to keep our money within the school, district, county and state," said Lisa Mahoney, of Whipple, who had hoped to apply for a manager position if Fort Frye kept full managerial control. "If we could increase the oversight of our current food service program we could certainly do a lot better than in the past."
The district had originally considered a complete contracting out of its food services but after receiving bids found they couldn't legally pursue that option and could only contract out management.
"Under our (Ohio Association of Public School Employees) labor agreement that option is not a viable option this year, according to our attorneys," said board member David Vandenberg. "There's one year left in that contract. Anything could be negotiated in a new contract."
The district's cooks said they worry they will lose their jobs after that contract is up and said they hadn't been told until recently the food program was in the red.
"Give us a chance to fix it," said cook Lynn Linger.
Board President Zack Waite said there has been no discussion yet on whether a full outsourcing of the services might occur next year.
"That could be the furthest thing from the truth," he said.
Hiring Chartwells to manage food services will mean gaining managerial expertise, software, food discounts and that all employees except the manager will remain employees of the Fort Frye district, board members said.
It will cost $34,030 more to run the program in the first year with Chartwells than if there was district management, said Fort Frye Superintendent Matt Dill.
"We'll have better food quality, an increase in nutrition, expertise, we expect a rise in participation...it's an investment," he said.
The district's food service program, which has 13 employees with one retiring this year, had seen a deficit of $41,000 last year and $32,000 this year.
If the district had been able to completely contract out services to Chartwells, there would have been a guarantee of breaking even in the first year, said Vandenberg.
Instead, there is still expected to be a deficit at the end of the first year but revenue is expected to keep rising beyond that.
Contracts are negotiated each year with Chartwells and at any given time a district can give 60 days notice and end the contract, said Thomas.
Chartwells has a fixed per-meal rate (16.75 cents per meal) for its management fee so the company makes more money if more students eat school meals, so marketing and new food choices are part of the package, he said.
"With the food being brought in, we hope to drive participation up," he said.
Dozens of people at the meeting offered several other suggestions to aid the sinking food services program, including extreme rises in meal prices and trying a new manager within the district.
Ultimately no one in the district has the expertise to manage a successful food service program, said Vandenberg.
"The success of this program is going to have to come from (Chartwells)," he said.
"We're the stewards of your dollars and cents," said Waite. "If that takes us hiring a company to manage food service, that's what we'll do."
After several hours in executive session, the board voted 3-2 in favor of hiring Chartwells, with board members David White and Tammy Bates voting against it.
White said he felt more time was needed to explore internal solutions.
"This really hit us hard last year," he said. "We have not sat down and told the cooks we have a problem so they could address it."
