Knox County school board pushes off vote to hire collection agency for unpaid meals

A federal program that offered free lunches to all school students during the pandemic has ended, and that has brought back an old issue for Knox County Schools: Some families are falling behind on paying for kids' meals.

The Knox County Board of Education, weighing the multiple changes to the school meals program over the past several years, decided Feb. 9 to suspend its policy requiring the district to collect past due payments. The vote, designed to give the nine-member board more time to talk through its options, was unanimous.

In the face of an unstable economy, the board may decide to stop sending past-due accounts to a collection agency, the process in place before the pandemic.

School board member Jennifer Owen suggested having a district employee work with families that don't pay instead of turning the matter over to a third-party collection agency focused on profits.

The board will discuss its options in March.

"(I) would love the idea of really the spirit of it being more about how do we come alongside of a family versus somebody's who's doing it for profit purposes," board member Daniel Watson said.

A debt collector was used until the practice was suspended in 2019-2020 when the federal government stepped in during the pandemic to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students.

Now that families are once again paying for meals, the district has unpaid debt of $205,000 as of Feb. 6, according to data shared by Carly Harrington, district spokeswoman. While this total includes debt owed on reduced price meals, those are not turned over to the debt collector.

The unpaid bills account for about 0.8% of the district's total annual meal program budget of more than $27 million.

How debt collection would work

Families that qualified for free or reduced-price meals were not contacted by the collection agency. Students with past-due accounts are not denied meals at school.

Before the pandemic, the district had a policy that if a student's balance exceeded $25, the school's nutrition department would contact parents or guardians. Another administrator might contact the family as well.

If the debt wasn't paid, it was handed over to third-party collectors. Employees of the debt-collection company would contact families to try to get the outstanding balance paid.

Debt collectors could call parents or guardians anywhere between one and seven times a week, depending on the amount of money owed. For instance, families who owed $1,500 or more would be contacted seven times a week for the first month, and then the frequency goes down. Those who owed less than $125 were contacted once every other day for the first month.

The district's assessment for which accounts are sent to debt collectors was done at the end of the fiscal year.

The contract with IC System, a Minnesota-based debt collection company, would have been for one year with the option to extend for four years. The debt collector would charge the district 21.5% of the total recovered amount, according to the contract document. So, for every $50 the company collects, it gets $10.75.

No unpaid student meal accounts have been sent for debt collection since the end of the 2018-2019 school year, Harrington said.

Knox County Schools where all student meals are free

Not all schools in the district charge students for meals. Thirty-nine schools with lower overall family income levels provide free breakfast and lunch for all without question through the Community Eligibility Provision program.

The following schools offer free meals:

Current meal prices for students

• Breakfast: $0.30 for those who qualify for reduced price, $2 for all others

• Lunch: $0.40 for those who qualify for reduced price, $2.75 for other elementary school students and $3 for middle and high schoolers

Other states offer free meals to all kids

After the pandemic federal aid program ended, Knox County Schools once again started charging students for meals. But some states found a way to continue free-lunch-for-all programs, including Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

California, Colorado and Maine have laws ensuring permanent universal meal programs for all children, regardless of parents' income. A few city districts, including in Chicago and New York City, also offer free meals to kids.

There are 94 schools in the Knox County school system with a total enrollment of 58,859 students. More than 12,300 students, or about 21 percent, come from economically disadvantaged households.

Universal school meals can promote academic achievement, keep kids healthier and reduce "lunch shaming" of students who have unpaid meal debt and can't afford their breakfast or lunch, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman for the national School Nutrition Association told USA TODAY.

USA TODAY contributed to this report.

Areena Arora, data and investigative reporter for Knox News, can be reached by email at areena.arora@knoxnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AreenaArora.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knox county schools to review debt collection for unpaid student meals